“Concert' doesn’t mean standing up like a target in front of thousands of strangers. It means coming together. It means harmony.”

“All I can think about is how fucked up it would be for your life to end here, now. I mean I know that your life if fucked up no matter what now, forever. And I'm not dumb enough to think that I can undo that, that anyone can. But I can't wrap my mind around the notion of you not getting old, having kids, going to Juilliard, getting to play that cello in front of a huge audience, so that they can get the chills the way I do every time I see you pick up your bow, every time I see you smile at me.”

“Everyone takes a turn, and when it gets to me, I shout out what Jewish people say at times like this: "L'chaim!" "It means 'to life,'" I explain. And as I say it, I think that maybe this is what I was saying a prayer for back in the cathedral. To life.”

“There were signs. Probably more of them than I ever caught, even after the fact. But I missed them all.Maybe because I wasn’t looking for them. I was too busy checking over my shoulder at the fire I’djust come through to pay much attention to the thousand-foot cliff looming in front of me.”

“The bow is so old, its horsehair is glueSent to the factory, just like me and like youSo how come they stayed your execution?The audience roars its standing ovation“Dust,”

“All relationships are tough. Just like with music, sometimes you have harmony and other times you have cacophony.”

“The audience keeps singing, keeps making my case, and I just keep strumming until I get close enough to see her eyes. And then I start singing the chorus. Right to her. And she smiles at me, and it’s like we’re the only two people out here, the only ones who know what’s happening. Which is that this song we’re all singing together is being rewritten. It’s no longer an angry plea shouted to the void. Right here, on this stage, in front of eighty thousand people, it’s becoming something else. This is our new vow.”