“Balderdash, I say, let the sword turn into an adder and the adder a salmon and the salmon a birch twig and birch twig a sword and the sword a tongue...Let it all run together so swiftly that it cannot be separated again...”

“And I would have answered:"The knottier the branch, the more twisted and misshapen, the more bent people called it, the harder it is to find it a place among the smooth planks, the more people agree that it should be thrown on the fire, the more useless it is, the more unsuitable for anything except letting one's imagination run riot, the more I covet it, the more I yearn to weigh it in my hand, the more I long to let my whittling knife be guided by its knots and veins...Yes, bring that piece to me...”

“I felt the heat of the animosity they bear towards me, the vindictive nature that drives a man to destroy his neighbour in a fire as if he were a banned book...for what is the difference? Every book is imbued with the human spirit.”

“Let the ideas clash, let the swords sleep!”

“Salmon. Salmon, salmon, salmon, salmon. I eat so much salmon at these weddings, twice a year I get this urge to swim upstream.”

“The pen is mightier than the sword, but the tongue is mightier than them both put together.”

“Mightier than the sword, the pen may be; but the tongue is mightiest of all.”