“the strange thing is that when a word is well established as a swear word, it seems to lose its original meaning; that is, it loses the thing that made it into a swear word. A word becomes an oath because it means a certain thing, and, because it has become an oath, it ceases to mean that thing.”

“A word has power in and of itself. It comes from nothing into sound and meaning; it gives origin to all things.”

“The things she most wanted to tell him would lose their meaning the moment she put them into words.”

“Justice? What is justice? It's a mere word. It's an abstract word with no universal meaning. To different classes of people, justice means different things.”

“I love when people quote me. It makes me feel that my words have meaning. People give words power. When they speak out for things they feel, we all become alive.”

“At first when you're learning a foreign language, what seems strange is that a different set of words exists for the things you know. But then, after a while, what seems strange is that so many words are the same, that two entirely different peoples, an ocean apart, would choose the exact same sounds. In the end, what causes the most trouble are the words that sound the same but mean different things: déception, nostalgie, grâce.”