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It was less a literary thing than a linguistic, philosophical preoccupation... discovering how far you can go with language to create immediate, elementary experience.

In the later books I am much more at home in the use of language to describe things. I had never thought of that until a critic pointed that out.

I think when I first started out, I had a kind of an exuberance about language, comedy, narrative leaps that... stopped just short of non sequiturs. And I'm much more cautious now.

Language should find itself in the physical world, and not end up locked in an idea in somebody's head.

I'm very interested in language because it reflects our obsessions and ways of conceptualising the world.

Language is froth on the surface of thought.

I have an acquired taste for language, yet it is seldom an actual focus of mine.

Human life is driven forward by its dim apprehension of notions too general for its existing language.

I grew up in a house where language was appreciated and cared about. I'm sure that, although I wasn't aware of it at the time, it must have made an impression on me.