“And so it was when anyone tried to speak: their minds would become tangled in remembrance. Words became floods of thought with no beginning or end, and would drown the speaker before he could reach the life raft of the point he was trying to make. It was impossible to remember what one meant, what, after all of the words, was intended.”

“If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.”

“That night, before he tried to sleep, Louie prayed. He had prayed only once before in his life, in childhood, when his mother was sick and he had been filled with a rushing fear that he would lose her. That night on the raft, in words composed in his head, never passing his lips, he pleaded for help.”

“In an instant he became aware that the tourist was about to try his own peculiar brand of linguistics, which meant that he would speak loudly and slowly in his own language.”

“If a man tried to take his time on earth and prove before he died, what one man's life could be worth, well I wonder what would happen to this world?”

“Oh, if a man tried To take his time on earth And prove before he died What one man's life could be worth, I wonder what would happen to this world”