“I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.”

“Now this court will learnthat I am the greatest in wit and courage.I am he whose writing the blind seeand whose words grant hearing to the deaf.Content with complete verses, I sleep,while others strain for simple rhymes.I laughed at the frauds and their ignoranceuntil, with discerning hand and mouth, I destroy them.If you see the lion bare his teeth,do not assume he is smiling!”

“But I am constant as the Northern Star,Of whose true fixed and resting qualityThere is no fellow in the firmament.”

“I was sent forth from the power,and I have come to those who reflect upon me,and I have been found among those who seek after me.Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,and you hearers, hear me.You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves.And do not banish me from your sight.And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing.Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!Do not be ignorant of me.For I am the first and the last.I am the honored one and the scorned one.I am the whore and the holy one.I am the wife and the virgin.I am and the daughter.I am the members of my mother.I am the barren oneand many are her sons.I am she whose wedding is great,and I have not taken a husband.I am the midwife and she who does not bear.I am the solace of my labor pains.I am the bride and the bridegroom,and it is my husband who begot me.I am the mother of my fatherand the sister of my husbandand he is my offspring.I am the slave of him who prepared me.I am the ruler of my offspring.But he is the one who begot me before the time on a birthday.And he is my offspring in (due) time,and my power is from him.I am the staff of his power in his youth,and he is the rod of my old age.And whatever he wills happens to me.I am the silence that is incomprehensibleand the idea whose remembrance is frequent.I am the voice whose sound is manifoldand the word whose appearance is multiple.I am the utterance of my name. -The Thunder, Perfect Mind”

“I am an emotional plagiarist, stealing other people's pain, subsuming it into my own until I can't remember whose it is any more.”

“By the grace of the Lady, whose face mirrors my own, may I ever remember I am made in her image, blessed and beautiful.”