“When I cannot see words curling like rings of smoke round me I am in darkness—I am nothing.”

“At Spezia when I am angry I go full of smoke inside, but when you make me angry I see everything.”

“I am nothing, yes; I am air and darkness, a word, a promise. I watch in the crystal and I wait in the hollow hills. But out there in the light I have a young king and a bright sword to do my work for me, and build what will stand when my name is only a word for forgotten songs and outworn wisdom, and when your name, Morgause, is only a hissing in the dark.”

“I am quitting a boy like some people quit smoking. I am not quitting smoking.”

“Why am I fighting to live,If I am just living to fight Why am I trying to see. When there aint nothing in sightWhy am I trying to give, When no one gives me a try Why am I dying to live,If I am just living to die?”

“I am what the water gave me, / a smoke-ring in a jar, / the braided rope / my ladder-to-the-light, / my shivering bird heart / caught”