“People liked to pretend, but when you knew the truth you could see nothing but the lie.”

“Won't you let me take you for a ride.You can stop the world, try to change my mind. Won't you let me show you how it feels. You can stop the world, but you won't change me. I need music." -"Bleed”

“Inside Jade Hall is a curtain of pearlsbehind it lives a graceful girlher beauty transcends the immortalsher skin is like that of a peachspring mists rise in the eastautumn winds stir in the westthirty years from nowshe’ll look like chewed sugarcane”

“It was scary. It was dark. You couldn't see anyone. You could hear people hollering, "Help, help." And all you can see is the stars, so many stars in the sky. More than we saw before when we had electricity. That's the only light we had, the stars. And it was just so close, so close to me. I just laid on the porch and watched the stars. And to me, this might sound crazy to other people, but to me it was like God looking down at us and talking. We don't hear no voice but he's talking. And to me it was like everything was going to be all right and my baby, my son who had died, is going to to be with him. And I always felt like I'm gonna be all right. And I don't have no fear.”

“When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”

“Without light, how can you keep the sight of the eyes? Without a future, how can you preserve the government? [...] We could have a most dilligent Home Secretary of Lunchtime. We could have an excellent Prime Minister of the Quietest Part of the Late Afternoon. But when twilight comes -do you see?- our world disappears. It cannot see beyond the day because you have taken tomorrow. And because you have tomorrow in front of your eyes, you cannot see what is being done today.”

“You go about your business, as far away from these lines as possible, pretending they're not there. So when you eventually find yourself at one of these lines, your toe inching over, it's not only shocking and horrifying, it's banal. Because you've always been aware the lines were there, where you were trying with all your might not to see them, knowing that sooner or later you would.”