This thesis is about quotation as a crucial means for Augustine to show how human language is flawed. Throughout this thesis, I will explore how Augustine uses his awareness of the malleability of language productively to find an adequate expression for this topic. It is a crucial issue for Augustine as it challenges exegesis of the scriptures, a text called sacred and considered the word of God, but written in malleable language. I argue that in the Cassiciacum dialogues and Confessions, quotation becomes Augustine’s laboratory for addressing this problem. I see studying Augustine’s use of quotation as a method that allows us to be attentive to his concerns as both a theologian and a writer. As a result, I think that we can learn to understand Augustine’s theology better once we understand that the form in which he presents it is crucial and pay due attention to this form. I will begin by looking at how Latin patristic writers negotiate the meaning of Greek λόγος in the prologue of the Gospel of John. This sets the scene for Augustine’s use of the scriptures in translation and quotation. In the second chapter, I turn to the three ‘scenic’ Cassiciacum dialogues. I focus on how Augustine negotiates the meaning and the importance of texts belonging to two different canons, the scriptures and the Classics, for learning and understanding. The concern with classical literature continues in my reading of Confessions 1 (chapter 3). I will juxtapose Augustine’s use of a Vergilian quotation with the narrative frame into which he has inserted this quotation. I examine how quotation is a means for Augustine to open up momentarily the temporality of narrative. In the fourth chapter, I begin by asking what the narratorial concern with temporality tells us about the theological concern with grace in Confessions 8. I compare Confessions 7 to a passage from the first book of De doctrina christiana in order to show how language takes on different roles in the two works, in which Augustine however makes the same point: the need of grace for reading. The final chapter returns to questions of temporality. I show that in Confessions 9 content, narrative, and quotation are inextricably intertwined by this concern.