Language exists less to record the actual than to liberate the imagination.

What critics often ask for is the impossible, though this may be a salutary means of extending the borders of art.

The downtrodden are the great creators of slang.

Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.

Any book has behind it all the other books that have been written.

We only need to wear shoes because the British built roads which hurt our feet.

Fumbling for a word is everybody's birthright.