"If you write fiction you are, in a sense, corrupted. There's a tremendous corruptibility for the fiction writer because you're dealing mainly with sex and violence. These remain the basic themes, they're the basic themes of Shakespeare whether you like it or not."

Burgess, Anthony on Fiction
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"Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about."

Whorf, Benjamin Lee on Language
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"The term up has no meaning apart from the word down. The term fast has no meaning apart from the term slow. In addition such terms have no meaning even when used together, except when confined to a very particular situation... most of our language about the organization and objective's of government is made up of such polar terms. Justice and injustice are typical. A reformer who wants to abolish injustice and create a world in which nothing but justice prevails is like a man who wants to make everything up. Such a man might feel that if he took the lowest in the world and carried it up to the highest point and kept on doing this, everything would eventually become up. This would certainly move a great many objects and create an enormous amount of activity. It might or might not be useful, according to the standards which we apply. However it would never result in the abolishment of down."

Arnold, Thurman W. on Conflict
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"It is still not enough for language to have clarity and content... it must also have a goal and an imperative. Otherwise from language we descend to chatter, from chatter to babble and from babble to confusion."

Daumal, Rene on Language
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"Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language."

Whitehead, Alfred North on Speech
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"We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."

Washington, Booker T. on Language
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"The downtrodden, who are the great creators of slang."

Burgess, Anthony on Language
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"Freedom is poetry, taking liberties with words, breaking the rules of normal speech, violating common sense. Freedom is violence."

Brown, Norman O. on Freedom
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"The violence and obscenity are left unadulterated, as manifestation of the mystery and pain which ever accompanies the act of creation."

Nin, Anais on Pornography
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