“The boldness and strength and happiness that were natural to me and to which I was denying their natural outlet refused to be denied and to be made sickly and fearful, and they poured through my veins then in an action of delight that was healthy and bold and strong. I forgot who or where I was and I made a sort of buzzing, humming noise like a top spinning or a bee. I felt a vibration like music all through me as if my blood were actually singing. And as though I were driven by that music which was formless yet felt as if it had the force of a dynamo. I crouched over my paper and held my pencil slavishly quick and intense, ready to serve this marvelous buzzing happiness at the moment when like surcharged atmosphere it should condense and form precious words that would drop onto my paper from the end of my pencil.”

“For so long, it was just my secret. It burned inside me, and I felt like I was carrying something important, something that made me who I was and made me different from everybody else. I took it with me everywhere, and there was never a moment when I wasn't aware of it. It was like I was totally awake, like I could feel every nerve ending in my body. Sometimes my skin would almost hurt from the force of it, that's how strong it was. Like my whole body was buzzing or something. I felt almost, I don't know, noble, like a medieval knight or something, carrying this secret love around with me.”

“I reached for the notebook which was always close by. All thoughts of composing epic poems of Greek heroes had left me. The words that often burst from my onto the paper in recent days would be considered mere nothings to the world, but they were everything to me . . . They were the pourings of my heart FOR my heart . . .”

“They began to tune up, and suddenly the auditorium was filled with a single sound - the most alive, three-dimensional thing I had ever heard. It made the hairs on my skin stand up, my breath catch in my throat....I felt the music like a physical thing; it didn't just sit in my ears, it flowed through me, around me, made my senses vibrate. It made my skin prickle and my palms dampen...It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.”

“It was like when I’d taken a trip to some foreign land and everyone asked about it when I got back: my accounts would grow similar, focusing on this impression, that cool place, a certain funny anecdote, until there was just the one account which then substituted for my memory. Remembering this tendency, I felt an honest fear. It was the familiar fear, made honest through sudden intensity, that once all the sensation had evaporated from my life the residue would be a cliché. I’d die, St. Peter would be like, “So how was it?” and I’d say, “Great place. I liked the food. I was sick for part of it. But all the people were really nice.” And that would be it.”

“I was most happy when pen and paper were taken from me and I was forbidden from doing anything. I had no anxiety about doing nothing by my own fault, my conscience was clear, and I was happy. This was when I was in prison.”