“Words and a book and a belief that the world is words...”

“Men of the world who value the Way all turn to books. But books are nothing more than words. Words have value; what is of value in words is meaning. Meaning has something it is pursuing, but the thing that it is pursuing cannot be put into words and handed down. The world values words and hands down books but, though the world values them, I do not think them worth valuing. What the world takes to be values is not real value.”

“In the end, it is my belief, words are the only things that can construct a world that makes sense.”

“A book is a physical object in a world of physical objects. It is a set of dead symbols. And then the right reader comes along, and the words—or rather the poetry behind the words, for the words themselves are mere symbols—spring to life, and we have a resurrection of the word.”

“it's the belief, not the words, that mean everything. it's the floating.”

“As the chant grew in volume she began to be conscious of the terrible potency of language, the sense that a name spoken is a summons and more than a summons, an act of creation, for a word shapes an idea, an idea shapes belief, and belief shapes the world. ”