“I think the revolutionary role of a writer is to make language that makes coalition possible, language that makes us see things in a new way.”

“Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it.”

“Gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught.”

“If I were a magician who could make things possible, I'd have lemonade always tasting as it did on the evening Francesco explained how right it was for the Italian moon to be a feminine moon. If I were a magician who could make things possible, we'd be able to understand all languages every evening between eight and nine. If I were a magician who could make things possible, all dams would keep their promises. If I were a magician who could make things possible, we'd be really brave.”

“Writers in what we now call the Middle English period (late twelfth century to 1485) did not necessarily always write in English. The language was in a state of flux: attempts were made to assert the French language, to keep down the local language, English, and to make the language of the church (Latin) the language of writing.”

“Perhaps it is the language that chooses the writers it needs, making use of them so that each might express a tiny part of what it is.”