Words have a taste, sweet but subtle, like dark chocolate; the scent of old bookshops; a flamenco rhythm; the feeling of the rain on your face on sunny days. Words are cruel and spiteful sometimes, wise and loving at others.

And we're such language-based creatures that to some extent we cannot know what we cannot name. And so we assume it isn't real. We refer to it with catch-all terms, like crazy or chronic pain, terms that both ostracise and minimise. The term chronic pain captures nothing of the grinding, constant, ceaseless, inescapable hurt. And the term crazy arrives at us with none of the terror and worry you live with.

Pathetic is when you assume the worst, because you are incapable of thinking beyond your own mental capacity.

Those who hate, are merely wallowing in self pity. Those who lie about someone to destroy his or her spirit, are simply trying to hide their fragile egos.

Words have power," Isaac answered. Words begin and end wars. They create and destroy families. They break hearts. They heal them. If you have the right words, there's nothin on earth you can't do."

- Crave the Moon

But language is malleable, and it is not always on the side of truth. This is something every writer knows. Words make and unmake the world with terrifying rapidity, and they do so without moral distinction…There is a battle going on right now over the words we use, over who has the right to speak and who does not. (Katie Kitamura)