“Because art is life, playing to other rhythms.”

“To write is to forget. Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life. Music soothes, the visual arts exhilarates, the performing arts (such as acting and dance) entertain. Literature, however, retreats from life by turning in into slumber. The other arts make no such retreat— some because they use visible and hence vital formulas, others because they live from human life itself. This isn't the case with literature. Literature simulates life. A novel is a story of what never was, a play is a novel without narration. A poem is the expression of ideas or feelings a language no one uses, because no one talks in verse.”

“Play hard. Play, play, play like your life depends on it. Because it does.”

“Art, its completeness, its formedness, its finishedness, had no power to console. Words on the other hand, were a lifeline. They left their hushed rhythm behind, a counter to the slow in and out of Emmeline's breathing.”

“The asynarte city; two rhythms unconnected, profanity, holiness, and out of that strange bed, art.”

“Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.”