“How can I find the words? Poets have taken them all and left me with nothing to say or do""Except to teach me for the first time what they meant.”

“I have to tell you it was the first time even after all these years of expecting my own death that i truly knew what it meant to die because with you gone there was nothing left for me to live for.”

“He is Romeo, and he is heartbroken. Every word is wistful. When he says, 'O, teach me how I should forget to think!' I, for the first time, see what the big deal is about Shakespeare.”

“It's impossible for me to say one word about all that music has meant to me in my life. How, then, can I hope to be understood?”

“Beckett, you’re doing this for people who don’t even know you’re protecting them. We’re in the shade here. I can do this. Let me do this. I can’t stand by and watch.”Beckett thought for a moment, saying nothing. Blake had taken the beating like a pro. Too good to be his first time.”

“I like it that they [disciples] feed me and pay for my clothes and protect me. And in return I will do for them what I can, but no more than that. Just as I cannot breathe the breath of another or help the heart of someone else to beat or their bones not to weaken or their flesh not to shrivel, I cannot say more than I can say. And I know how deeply this disturbs them, and it would make me smile, this earnest need for foolish anecdote or sharp simple patterns in the story of what happened to us all, except that I have forgotten how to smile.”