“At first, all is black and white.Black on white.That's where I'm walking, through pages.These pages.Sometimes it gets so that I have one foot in the pages and the words, and the other in what they speak of.”
“It feels like spoken words, this bridge. I want it but fear it. God, I want so desperately to reach the other side - just like I want the words. I want my words to build bridges strong enough to walk on. I want them to tower over the world so I can stand up on them and walk to the other side.”
“For most of the journey, he made his way through the book,trying never to look up.The words lolled in his mouth as he read them.Strangely, as he turned the pages and progressed through the chapters, it was only two words he ever tasted."Mein Kampf." My struggle-The title, over and over again, as the train prattled on, from one German town to the next."Mein Kampf."Of all the things to save him.”
“I tell me:Let these words be footsteps, because I have a long way to travel. Let the words walk the dirty streets. Let them make their way across the crying grass. Let them stand and breathe and pant smoke in winter evenings. And when they're tired and have fallen down, let them buckle to their feet ad arc around me, watchful.I want these words to be actions.Give them flesh and bones, I say to me, and eyes of hunger and desire, so they can write and fight me through the night.”
“She tore a page from the book and ripped it in half.Then a chapter.Soon, there was nothing but scraps of words littered between her legs and all around her. The words. Why did they have to exist? Without them, there wouldn't be any of this. Without words, the Führer was nothing. There would be no limping prisoners, no need for consolation or wordly tricks to make us feel better.What good were the words?She said it audibly now, to the orange-lit room. "What good are the words?”
“I've wandered through the real world, and written myself through the darkness of the streets inside me. I see people walking through the city and wonder where they've been, and what the moments of their lives have done to them. If they're anything like me, their moments have held them up and shot them down.Sometimes I just survive.But sometimes I stand on the rooftop of my existence, arms stretched out, begging for more.That's when the stories show up in me.They find me all the time.They're made of underdogs and fighters. They're made of hunger and desire and trying to live decent.The only trouble is, I don't know which of those stories comes first.Maybe they all just merge into one.We'll see, I guess.I'll let you know when I decide.”
“So many humans. So many colours. They keep triggering inside me. They harass my memory. I see them tall in their heaps, all mounted on top of each other. There is air like plastic, a horizon like setting glue. There are skies manufactured by people, punctured and leaking, and there are soft, coal-coloured clouds, beating, like black hearts. And then. There is death. Making his way through all of it. On the surface: unflappable, unwavering. Below: unnerved, untied, and undone.”