“The notion that speech wounds appears to rely on this inseparable and incongruous relation between body and speech, but also, consequently, between speech and its effects. If the speaker addresses his or her body to the one addressed, then it is not merely the body of the speaker that comes into play: it is the body of the addressee as well. Is the one speaking merely speaking, or is the one speaking comporting her or his body toward the other, exposing the body of the other as vulnerable to address. As an "instrument" of a violent rhetoricity, the body of the speaker exceeds the words that are spoken, exposing the addressed body as no longer (and not ever fully) in its own control.” —Judith Butler, Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative
“In society, nothing is without meaning. Nothing has no content. Society is made of words, whose meanings the powerful control, or try to. At a certain point, when those who are hurt by them become real, some words are recognized as the acts that they are.” —Catharine A. MacKinnon, Only Words
“Words, like sticks and stones, can assault; they can injure; they can exclude.” —Mari J Matsuda, Charles R. Lawrence III, Richard Delgado, Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, Words That Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, And The First Amendment (from the back cover)