“At home I have a blue piano.But I can’t play a note.It’s been in the shadow of the cellar doorEver since the world went rotten.Four starry hands play harmonies,The Woman in the Moon sang in her boat.Now only rats dance to the clanks.The keyboard is in bits.I wept for what is blue. Is dead.Sweet angels, I have eatenSuch bitter bread. Push openThe door of heaven. For me, for now-Although I am still alive-Although it is not allowed”

“I have learned to walk: since then I have run. I have learned to fly: since then I do not have to be pushed in order to move.Now I am nimble, now I fly, now I see myself under myself, now a god dances within me.”

“Although I have the colors, only the Lord can mix them with such harmony.”

“I knew I wouldn't discover happiness in a faraway place or in unusual circumstances; it was right here, right now— as in the haunting play "The Blue Bird," where two children spend a year searching the world for the Blue Bird of Happiness, only to find it waiting for them when they finally return home.”

“If you hand me a guitar, I'll play the blues. That's the place I automatically go.”

“I play until my fingers are blue and stiff from the cold, and then I keep on playing. Until I'm lost in the music. Until I am the music--notes and chords, the melody and harmony. It hurts, but it's okay because when I'm the music, I'm not me. Not sad. Not afraid. Not desperate. Not guilty.”