“Poetry is a will to put things right, an imaginary solution, a way of avoiding a catastrophe that already happened. Poetry is an escape, perhaps intelligent, perhaps idiotic, from a senile situation. It is a dialectical movement, it keeps tearing open the wounds while trying to heal them. Here we see the only acceptable path open up towards an existence worthy of human beings. Here the seriousness is unfaltering and absolute. Where it will lead no one knows.”

“I don’t think dreams mean anything; they just are. There’s no reason to translate them into logic.”

“I remove my wedding rings and put them in the jewelry box. So many others have done this. I am not the only one. I am not the only one. But here, I am the only one.”

“But in spite of my great desire for intimacy, I've always been a loner. Perhaps when the longing for connection is as strong as it is in me, when the desire is for something so deep and true, one knows better than to try. One sees that this is not the place for that.”

“Our constant barrage of why's sounds a lot like whining to me. If you are a "why-ner," you're not looking for solutions. You are not interested in answers. You only want sympathy. But if you stop "why-ning," you can develop a belief system that says there are unfair things that happen in life that are an integral part of existence, and that when they happen you'll deal with them the best you can. Only then are you in the position to start making changes in your life.”

“mostly, you only make a change, the balding chinese man tells me. I stare at him for a moment, uncomprehending, wondering if perhaps he is offering advice,then realize he is talking about money: I am to make change .― Elizabeth Berg, Open House”

“Poetry is perhaps this: an Atemwende, a turning of our breath. Who knows, perhaps poetry goes its way—the way of art—for the sake of just such a turn? And since the strange, the abyss and Medusa’s head, the abyss and the automaton, all seem to lie in the same direction—is it perhaps this turn, this Atemwende, which can sort out the strange from the strange? It is perhaps here, in this one brief moment, that Medusa’s head shrivels and the automaton runs down? Perhaps, along with the I, estranged and freed here, in this manner, some other thing is also set free?”