“The animals have no need for speech, why talk when you are a word.”

“If you can call it talking, these clipped whispers, projected through the funnels of our white wings. It’s more like a telegram, a verbal semaphore. Amputated speech.”

“speech to him was a task, a battle, words mustered behind his beard and issued one at a time, heavy and square like tanks.”

“Bless you. Be careful. Anyone intending to meddle with words needs such blessing, such warning.”

“bye-bye love, as in songs. All alone now. It was so sad. Why did such things have to disintegrate like that? Why did longing and desire, and friendliness and goodwill too, have to shatter into pieces? Why did they have to be so thoroughfully over?I could make myself cry even more by repeating the key word: love,alone, sad, over. I did it on purpose.”

“The true story is vicious and multiple and untrue after all. Why do you need it? Don’t ever ask for the true story.”

“When any civilization is dust and ashes," he said, "art is all that's left over. Images, words, music. Imaginative structures. Meaning—human meaning, that is—is defined by them. You have to admit that.”