“There was something, both in fiction and in his life (Nabokov), that we instinctively related to and grasped, the possibility of a boundless freedom when all options are taken away.I could invent violin or be devoured by the void.”

“Music is the love child birthed from the boundless freedom found in dreams and the rapturous opposition faced in life; for that, we should be so grateful for both the light and the dark.”

“We are the bright new stars born of a screaming black hole, the nascent suns burst from the darkness, from the grasping void of space that folds and swallows -- a darkness that would devour anyone not as strong as we.”

“It is amazing how, when all possibilities seem to be taken away from you, the minutest opening can become a great freedom.”

“Literature is invention. Fiction is fiction. To call a story a true story is an insult to both truth and art.”

“The aim of the poet is to inform or delight, or to combine together, in what he says, both pleasure and applicability to life. In instructing, be brief in what you say in order that your readers may grasp it quickly and retain it faithfully. Superfluous words simply spill out when the mind is already full. Fiction invented in order to please should remain close to reality.”