“We stand dead still and we listen to the night. The city drones. An owl hoots and a cat howls and a dog barks and a siren wails.We let the stars shine into us.”

“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.”

“We come to a lamp beside the pathway, and suddenly we stop walking, and we start to dance, and we glitter in the shafts of light, like stars, like flies, like flakes of dust.”

“Then what shall I write? I can't just write that this happened then this happened then this happened to boring infinitum. I'll let my journal grow just like the mind does, just like a tree or beast does, just like life does. Why should a book tell a tale in a dull straight line? 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.”

“All of us can do what we like.”“No we can’t. You’re stupid if you think so.”

“I have hair that drifts like seaweed when I swim. I have eyes that shine like rock pools. My ears are like scallop shells. The ripples on my skin are like the ripples on the sand when the tide has turned back again. At night I gleam and glow like sea beneath the stars and moon. Thoughts dart and dance inside like little minnows in the shallows. They race and flash like mackerel farther out. My wonderings roll in the deep like sails. Dreams dive each night into the dark like dolphins do and break out happy and free into the morning light. These are the things I know about myself and that I see when I look in the rock pools at myself.”

“I do think there is evil. But it is very rare. It is as rare as true goodness. And just as true goodness produces rare saints, true evil produces rare monsters. The rest of us are semi-good, semi-bad, and we live our lives in a kind of half-happy, half-sad daze. We might hope that one sunny morning we find ourselves in the presence of a saint. And we must pray that we do not encounter the monster.”