“It's the endlessly thinking about yourself that causes such heart shame.”

“Children played at those stories; they dreamed about them. They took them to heart and acted as if to live inside them.”

“I'm not involved in shame. Morals are learned in childhood, and I didn't have any such holiday called childhood.”

“...I dabble in causes and effects.”

“...the reasons just reassemble themselves in different patterns every time I think about it.”

“How shallow the words are, really - She is a witch. One might as well say, She is a mother, thinks Iris; that about covers the same terrain, doesn't it?”

“There was something about words and music together that allowed people to get nearest to honest truth about what was most difficult to say. Paradoxically, only through the essential instantaneity of music could you approach its eternal pertinence.”