“Imagine a world without shadows. You cannot touch a shadow, but a world without them is a hard world, and flat.”

“Is this the curse of modernity, to live in a world without judgment, without perspective, no context for understanding or distinguishing what is real and what is imagined, what is manipulated and what is by chance beautiful, what is shadow and what is flesh?”

“Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.”

“He who imagines he can do without the world deceives himself much; but he who fancies the world cannot do without him is still more mistaken.”

“Do not resent your place in the story. Do not imagine yourself elsewhere. Do not close your eyes and picture a world without thorns, without shadows, without hawks. Change this world. Use your body like a tool meant to be used up, discarded, and replaced. Better every life you touch. We will reach the final chapter. When we have eyes that can stare into the sun, eyes that only squint for the Shenikah, then we will see laughing children pulling cobras by their tails, and hawks and rabbits playing tag.”

“A person's shadow stood for his legacy, his impact on the world. Some people cast hardly any shadow at all. Some cast long, deep shadows that endured for centuries.”