Ursula K. Le Guin — Ursula on Writing: A Message about Messages

The limits of that language—shared assumptions of class, culture, education, ethics—both focus and shrink the scope of the fiction.

because they fulfill the most ancient, urgent function of words: to form for us “mental representations of things not actually present,” so that we can form a judgment of what world we live in and where we might be going in it, what we can celebrate, what we must fear.

What a child needs, what we all need, is to find some other people who have imagined life along lines that make sense to us and allow some freedom, and listen to them. Not hear passively, but listen. Listening is an act of community, which takes space, time, and silence.