“When I’m typing at my keyboard, I often feel like Mozart. Can somebody scratch my Bach?
”

“Art has always been my salvation. And my gods are Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Mozart. I believe in them with all my heart. And when Mozart is playing in my room, I am in conjunction with something I can’t explain — I don’t need to. I know that if there’s a purpose for life, it was for me to hear Mozart. Or if I walk in the woods and I see an animal, the purpose of my life was to see that animal. I can recollect it, I can notice it. I’m here to take note of. And that is beyond my ego, beyond anything that belongs to me, an observer, an observer.”

“Crying and scratching. They are both supposed to offer relief, but they don't. My muscles feel bruised and my bones hurt where they get near my skin. I am happiest when I'm typing. And then I push the typewriter off my lap and curl my body around it like a sea horse and fall asleep like Esther, konwing that when I wake up, things will be more or lest exactly the same.”

“It may be that when the angels go about their task praising God, they play only Bach. I am sure, however, that when they are together en famille they play Mozart.”

“I feel like I’m holding my breath all the time, never knowing when my lungs will just give up. The air we’re supposed to breathe is up above – I can feel it.”

“I feel like I’m somebody else tonight.”