“Afterwards, when Clavain tried to imaging how he might describe it, he found that words were never going to be adequate for the task. And that was no surprise: evolution had shaped language to convey many concepts, but going from a single to a networked topology of self was not amongst them.”

The Great Wall of Mars (p. 37)
Short fiction, Galactic North (2006)

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Do you have more details about the quote "Afterwards, when Clavain tried to imaging how he might describe it, he found that words were never going to be adequate…" by Alastair Reynolds?

Alastair Reynolds198

British novelist and astronomer 1966

Mervyn Peake (1911–1968) English writer, artist, poet and illustrator

Maeve Gilmore (his widow), Introduction to A Book of Nonsense, p. 10

“A living poem" had always been the words that came to mind when he tried to describe her to others.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

“Jace hadn't seemed perturbed, but knowing him, Simon had no doubt he could kill several people in a single morning and go out for waffles afterward.”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Simon, about Jace, pg. 50-51
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

“The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
Context: The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages. The "thing in itself" (which is precisely what the pure truth, apart from any of its consequences, would be) is likewise something quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for. This creator only designates the relations of things to men, and for expressing these relations he lays hold of the boldest metaphors.' To begin with, a nerve stimulus is transferred into an image: first metaphor. The image, in turn, is imitated in a sound: second metaphor. And each time there is a complete overleaping of one sphere, right into the middle of an entirely new and different one.