It's possible to name everything and to destroy the world.

I would like to outsmart the role that is destined for me. But I can't. I have failed to destroy my category.

When a man modifies or adorns a woman's name, or dispatches an endearment into her vicinity, he is attempting at once to alter and deny her, to dilute the privacy of the category she has inherited and to require that she respond as someone quite less than herself.

You named your sword Fire? Fire? What kind of a boring name is that? You might as well name your sword 'Blazing Blade' and be done with it. Fire indeed. Humph. Wouldn't you rather have a sword called Sheepbiter or Chrysanthemum Cleaver or something else with imagination?

Many who have learned
from Hesiod the countless names
of gods and monsters
never understand
that night and day are one

One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once 'The Unnecessary War'.