“Music sounds different to the one who plays it. It is the musician's curse.”

“A poet is a musician who can't sing.”

“Remember this, son, if you forget everything else. A poet is a musician who can't sing. Words have to find a man's mind before they can touch his heart, and some men's minds are woeful small targets. Music touches their hearts directly no matter how small or stubborn the mind of the man who listens.”

“Each woman is like an instrument, waiting to be learned, loved, and finely played, to have at last her own true music made.”

“Then I played the song that hides in the center of me. That wordless music that moves through the secret places in my heart. I played it carefully, strumming it slow and low into the dark stillness of the night. I would like to say it is a happy song, that it is sweet and bright, but it is not.”

“It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.”

“You,” I said, “are sweet music in a distant room.”