“The piano is kind of like a dance floor for our thoughts you know? A very woody foundation so that we can really focus on the poetry.”

“Really? We are being herded on a bus to drive across town to an all-boy academy where we disembark and join our lonely counterparts on a dance floor. Sounds like a scorecard situation to me.”

“Our life's dance is not painted for us in footsteps on the floor. It's not laid out so we know where to place our next step. We simply had to judge which steps best fit the rhythms that we hear." ”

“Our life depends on the kind of thoughts we nurture. If our thoughts are peaceful, calm, meek, and kind, then that is what our life is like. If our attention is turned to the circumstances in which we live, we are drawn into a whirlpool of thoughts and can have neither peace nor tranquility.”

“To know what we think, to be masters of our own meaning, will make a solid foundation for great and weighty thought.”

“Poetry translation is like playing a piano sonata on a trombone.”