Men seek for vocabularies that are reflections of reality. To this end, they must develop vocabularies that are selections of reality. And any selection of reality must, in certain circumstances, function as a deflection of reality.

Our purpose is simply to ask how theological principles can be shown to have usable secular analogues that throw light upon the nature of language.

The most characteristic concern of rhetoric [is] the manipulation of men's beliefs for political ends....the basic function of rhetoric [is] the use of words by human agents to form attitudes or to induce actions in other human agents.

Stories are equipment for living.

Words are like planets, each with its own gravitational pull.

The progress of human enlightenment can go no further than in picturing people not as vicious, but as mistaken.

You persuade a man only insofar as you can talk his language by speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying your ways with his