“We're trapped in linguistic constructs... all that is is metaphor.”

“It's no wonder we're all such a mess, is it? We're like Tom Hanks in Big. Little boys and girls trapped in adult bodies and forced to get on with it. ”

“Suppose the word mountain meant metaphor, and dog, and Bible, and the United States. Clearly, if a word meant everything, it would mean nothing. If, now, the law of contradiction is an arbitrary convention, and if our linguistic theorists choose some other convention, I challenge them to write a book in conformity with their principles. As a matter of fact it will not be hard for them to do so. Nothing more is necessary than to write the word metaphor sixty thousand times: Metaphor metaphor metaphor metaphor…. This means the dog ran up the mountain, for the word metaphor means dog, ran, and mountain. Unfortunately, the sentence “metaphor metaphor metaphor” also means, Next Christmas is Thanksgiving, for the word metaphor has these meanings as well.”

“It's because we're so trapped in our culture, in the being of being human on this planet with the brains we have, and the same two arms and legs everybody has. We're so trapped that any way we could imagine to escape would be just another part of the trap. Anything we want, we're trained to want.”

“The construct of a new, fictional 'Balkans' [is] a result of linguistic violence beginning with the verb 'to balkanize,' which most of the world's dictionaries define primarily as 'to divide.' Linguistic terrorism is only one part of the larger process of stigmatization that aims to establish social control and the imposition of silence upon the Balkan peoples so as to allow others to speak in their name. Thus, everyone can speak about the Balkans but the Balkanites themselves.”

“Everything that's born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they're all on fire, and we're all trapped.”