“Satan puts three knots at the back of the head of any of you if he is asleep. On every knot he reads and exhales the following words, ‘The night is long, so stay asleep.’ When one wakes up and remembers Allah, one knot is undone; and when one performs ablution, the second knot is undone, and when one prays the third knot is undone and one gets up energetic with a good heart in the morning; otherwise one gets up lazy and with a mischievous heart.”

“With knot of one, the spell's begun.With knot of two, the spell be true.With knot of three, the spell is free.With knot of four, the power is stored.With knot of five, the spell with thrive.With knot of six, this spell I fix.”

“Long ago in China, knot-makers tied string into buttons and frogs, and rope into bell pulls. There was one knot so complicated that it blinded the knot-maker. Finally an emperor outlawed this cruel knot, and the nobles could not order it anymore. If I had lived in China, I would have been an outlaw knot-maker.”

“A mixed up knot of incompatible roles, tied up too tight to know where one ended and another began.”

“Often when we think we are knotting one thread, we are tying quite another.”

“Good writing takes place at intersections, at what you might call knots, at places where the society is snarled or knotted up.”