" Signification arouses speech as the world arouses my body--by a mute presence which awakens my intentions without deploying itself before them. In me as well as in the listener who finds it in hearing me, the significative intention (even if it is subsequently to fructify in 'thoughts') is at the moment no more than a determinate gap to be filled by words--the excess of what I intend to say over what is being said or has already been said. "
― Maurice Merleau-Ponty , Signs