“I'm going to teach you the art of swordsmanship-or in other words, how to totally kill someone with a sharp, pointy thing.”

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.”

“It's easier to teach a hungry person how to be sharp than it is to teach a sharp person how to be hungry.”

“How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?" (Plato) The things we want are transformative, and we don’t know or only think we know what is on the other side of that transformation. Love, wisdom, grace, inspiration- how do you go about finding these things that are in some ways about extending the boundaries of the self into unknown territory, about becoming someone else?”

“Will you teach me how to paint?”“Just paint.”“I’m not any good.”“Do it for therapy. You can go to art school later.”

“If you're going to carry a dagger, you need to learn to use it."I frowned at him. "I know how to use it. I stick the pointy end in things I don't like.”