“The compelling thing about making art - or making anything, I suppose - is the moment when the vaporous, insubstantial idea becomes a solid there, a thing, a substance in a world of substances.”

“It’s the glitches and twists, I thought, that make this universe unique and compelling. Without flaws, there would beno depth, no substance.”

“Books, in the plural lose their solidity of substance and become a gas, filling all available space.”

“Poetry and art nourish the soul of the world with the flavor-filled substances of beauty, wisdom and truth.”

“Humans are about to grasp basic substances of all creations. When that moment comes, life or death are no longer matters.”

“What can you say about pain?Words can trace only the shadow of the thing itself. The reality of hard, sharp physical pain is like nothing else, and it is beyond language. The world is too much with us, day and night, but when we hurt, when we really hurt, the world melts and fades and becomes a ghost, a dim memory, a silly unimportant thing. Whatever ideals, dreams, loves, fears, and thoughts we might have had become ultimately unimportant. We are alone with our pain, it is the only force in the cosmos, the only thing of substance, the only thing that matters, and if the pain is bad enough and lasts long enough, if it is the sort of agony that goes on and on, then all the things that are our humanity melt before it and the proud sophisticated computer that is the human brain becomes capable of but a single thought: Make it stop, make it STOP! (from The Glass Flower)”