“The letters make words and words make us.”

“And what is wrong with playing with words? Words love to be played with, just like children or kittens do!”

“Writing will be like a journey, every word a footstep that takes me further into undiscovered land.”

“Words should wander and meander. They should fly like owls and flicker like bats and slip like cats. They should murmur and scream and dance and sing.”

“Words are too easy,” he says. He opens his book. “What looks like truth and sounds like truth might be nothing but a dream, nothing but a story I wish had happened.”

“Drawing makes you look at the world more closely. It helps you see what you’re looking at more clearly. Did you know that?”

“Well, well,” she murmurs as I back away.She makes a rectangle with her index fingers and thumbs and looks at my skin through it.“You’re right,” she says. “The boy’s a living work of art.”