" Language, like the mouths that hold and release it, is wet & living, each   word is wrinkled with age, swollen with other words, with blood, smoothed by the numberless flesh tongues that have passed across it.   Your language hangs around your neck, a noose, a heavy necklace; each word is empire, each word is vampire and mother. "

― Margaret Atwood , Selected Poems II: 1976 - 1986