Language is what determines this regulated world, whose significations provide the foundation for our cultures, our activities and our relations, but it does so in so far as it is reduced to a means of these cultures, activities and relations; freed from these servitudes, it is nothing more than a deserted castle whose gaping cracks let in the wind and the rain: it is no longer the signifying word, but the defenceless expression death wears as a disguise.

Bataille, reviewing Beckett's Molloy