“Words are the clothes thoughts wear.”

“Personally of course I regret everything.Not a word, not a deed, not a thought, not a need,not a grief, not a joy, not a girl, not a boy,not a doubt, not a trust, not a scorn, not a lust,not a hope, not a fear, not a smile, not a tear,not a name, not a face, no time, no place...that I do not regret, exceedingly.An ordure, from beginning to end.”

“the churn of stale words in the heart againlove love love thud of the old plungerpestling the unalterablewhey of words”

“But he had turned, little by little, a disturbance into words, he had made a pillow of old words, for his head.”

“Yes, light, there is no other word for it.”

“Words are all we have.”

“She felt, as she felt so often with Murphy, spattered with words that went dead as soon as they sounded; each word obliterated, before it had time to make sense, by the word that came next; so that in the end she did not know what had been said. It was like difficult music heard for the first time.”