“We hope the "real" person behind the words will be revealed as ignominiously as a shapeless snail without its shapely shell.”
On “consumeristic appetite for interviews,” New York Times (17 August 1986)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
John Updike 240
American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, an… 1932–2009Related quotes

Source: Cours de linguistique générale (1916), p. 111-112
Source: Course in General Linguistics
Context: Psychologically our thought-apart from its expression in words-is only a shapeless and indistinct mass. Philosophers and linguists have always agreed in recognizing that without the help of signs we would be unable to make a clear-cut, consistent distinction between two ideas. Without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula. here are no pre-existing ideas, and nothing is distinct before the appearance of language.
“Even a snail will eventually reach its destination.”
Source: The Street of a Thousand Blossoms