[...] In order that a sequence of clauses, or clause complexes, should constitute a text, it is necessary to do more than give an appropriate internal structure to each. It is necessary also to make explicit the external relationship between one clause or clause complex and another, and to do so in a way which is not dependent on grammatical structure.
- Halliday (1985), a pag.287

Text is something that happens, in the form of talking or writing, listening or reading. When we analyse it, we analyse the product of this process; and the term ʻtextʼ is usually taken as referring to the product – especially the product in its written form, since this is most clearly perceptible as an object (though now that we have tape recorders it has become easier for people to conceive of spoken language also as text).
- Halliday (1985), a pag.290

It is not the words and structures, the lexicogrammatical features [...] that make a text. A text is the product of ongoing semantic relationships.
- Halliday (1985), a pag.291

Every text – that is, everything that is said or written – unfolds in some context of use.
- Halliday (1985), a pag.XIII

It (the text) assumes an interpretation not only of the environment of the text, its ʻcontext of situationʼ and ʻcontext of cultureʼ, but also of how the linguistic features of a text relate systematically to the features of its environment, including the intentions of those involved in its production.
- Halliday (1985), a pag.XV-XVI

A text can be a highly complex phenomenon, the product of a highly complex ideational and interpersonal environment.
- Halliday (1985), a pag.XVI

A text is a semantic unit, not a grammatical one.
- Halliday (1985), a pag.XVII

[…] we can see the text in its aspect as a process. The natural tendency is to think of a text as a thing – a product. This is the form in which it is presented to us as a piece of writing [...] The process/product distinction is a relevant one for linguistics because it corresponds to that between our experience of speech and our experience of writing: writing exists, whereas speech happens.
- Halliday (1985), a pag.XXII-XXIII