“First she said we were to keep clear of the Sirens, who sit and sing most beautifully in a field of flowers; but she said I might hear them myself so long as no one else did. Therefore, take me and bind me to the crosspiece half way up the mast; bind me as I stand upright, with a bond so fast that I cannot possibly break away, and lash the rope's ends to the mast itself. If I beg and pray you to set me free, then bind me more tightly still.”

“If money is the bond binding me to human life, binding society to me, connecting me with nature and man, is not money the bond of all bonds? Can it not dissolve and bind all ties? Is it not, therefore, also the universal agent of separation?”

“I have on my table a violin string. It is free to move in any direction I like. If I twist one end, it responds; it is free.But it is not free to sing. So I take it and fix it into my violin. I bind it and when it is bound, it is free for the first time to sing.”

“I cannot hate them because nothing binds me to them; I have nothing in common with them.”

“Have I ever said that Turner once actually had himself lashed to the mast of a ship, to be able to later do a painting of a storm? Which has never failed to remind me of the scene in which Odysseus does the identical thing, of course, so that he can listen to the Sirens singing but will stay put.”

“Bind me-I still can sing-Banish-my mandolinStrikes true within-Slay-and my Soul shall riseChanting to Paradise-Still thine.”