How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
"I could have told him that this is the limit that even the most omnipotent police force cannot broach. We can prevent reading: but in the decree that forbids reading there will be still read something of the truth that we would wish never to be read…." (19.18)
Ah, the demise of Ermes Marana, a man who once thought he could control language entirely by intentionally filling it with falsehood. In the end, Marana has admitted that "'in reading, something happens over which I have no power'" (19.18). In this passage, Porphyrich claims that this conclusion is not surprising, since he has already realized that just as language can never control what it's trying to say, the police cannot control language by banning reading. No matter what type of free will people try to bring to language, and no matter how much they try to control the meanings of words, there will always be something that escapes them. This is the fate of language, and in a paradoxical way, this fate is what gives humans the free will to always keep striving for better uses of language.