“A language is an exact reflection of the character and growth of its speakers.”

“The study of a language . . . allows its students to hear a people's 'interpretation (or misinterpretation) of messages from environment to human.' The spoken word reveals, upon reflection, that to which its speakers first chose to listen, then ponder, then live by.”

“All language is a set of symbols whose use among its speakers assumes a share past”

“A language is the joint historical creation of millions of speakers. Although all speakers have some effect on the trajectory of a language, the process is not particularly egalitarian. Linguists, grammarians, and educators, some of them backed by the power of the state, weigh in heavily. But the process is not particularly amenable to a dictatorship, either. Despite the efforts toward "central planning," language (especially its everyday spoken form) stubbornly tends to go on its own rich, multivalent, colorful way.”

“Rin slept inside the oak’s thought. Its own memories of weather and growth continued to hum, and like a pond, its stillness reflected back herself.”

“Language is an old-growth forest of the mind.”