“I believe in a long, prolonged, derangement of the senses in order to obtain the unknown.”

“The Poet makes himself a seer through a long, vast and painstaking derangement of all the senses”

“My heart, for unknown reasons, seems to freeze in motion in my chest. I can see he senses it and he holds his pause to enjoy my suffering, prolonging my ignorance. “Viktor, what?”

“I'm now making myself as scummy as I can. Why? I want to be a poet, and I'm working at turning myself into a seer. You won't understand any of this, and I'm almost incapable of explaining it to you. The idea is to reach the unknown by the derangement of all the senses. It involves enormous suffering, but one must be strong and be a born poet. It's really not my fault.”

“...the angel in man-- has also been my own life-long obsession. In a sense I believe it has always been the problem of the creative being... obsessed... with the idea of re-creating the world in order, as I see it, to re-establish man's innocence.”

“Master Li, how are we going to murder a man who laughs at axes?" I asked.We are going to experiment, dear boy. Our first order of business will be to find a deranged alchemist, which should not be very difficult. China," said Master Li, "is overstocked with deranged alchemists.”