“He tried to listen to the conversations going on at the table and he found that he could no longer concentrate on what anyone was saying and which was worse that he was not interested in any of what he was able to hear.”

“I’m not going,” he said. He held up the Third key like a weapon. Sensing his mood, it grew longer and sharper, till he was holding a trident as long as he was tall... “And anyone who tries to make me is going to suffer.” “Twice,” added the voice under the table.”

“...As with many American conversations, the words he spoke had not conveyed what he had intended by them. He could never decide if it was his English, his actual use of language, or if it was because people didn't really listen and instead put into the words they heard the words they expected to hear.”

“Menfolks listens to somebody because of what he says. Women don't. They don't care what he said. They listens because of what he is.”

“If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.”

“He had no longer any need for home, for he carried his Gormenghast within him. All that he sought was jostling within himself. He had grown up. What a boy had set out to seek a man had found, found by the act of living.”