“All language begins with speech, and the speech of common men at that, but when it develops to the point of becoming a literary medium it only looks like speech.”

“It's freeing, to think that there's always an aspect of us outside the grasp of speech, the common stuff of language.”

“Language signifies when instead of copying thought it lets itself be taken apart and put together again by thought. Language bears the sense of thought as a footprint signifies the movement and effort of a body. The empirical use of already established language should be distinguished from its creative use. Empirical language can only be the result of creative language. Speech in the sense of empirical language - that is, the opportune recollection of a preestablished sign – is not speech in respect to an authentic language. It is, as Mallarmé said, the worn coin placed silently in my hand. True speech, on the contrary - speech which signifies, which finally renders "l'absente de tous bouquets" present and frees the sense captive in the thing - is only silence in respect to empirical usage, for it does not go so far as to become a common noun. Language is oblique and autonomous, and if it sometimes signifies a thought or a thing directly, that is only a secondary power derived from its inner life. Like the weaver, the writer works on the wrong side of his material. He has only to do with the language, and it is thus that he suddenly finds himself surrounded by sense.”

“Men employ speech only to conceal their thoughts.”

“Speeches are like steer horns- A point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.”

“Irony is Fate's most common figure of speech.”