“Out of the cradle endlessly rocking, Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle, Out of the Ninth-month midnight, Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed, wander’d alone, bare-headed, barefoot, Down from the shower’d halo,Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they were alive, Out from the patches of briers and blackberries, From the memories of the bird that chanted to me, From your memories, sad brother—from the fitful risings and fallings I heard, From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears,From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent mist, From the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease, From the myriad thence-arous’d words, From the word stronger and more delicious than any, From such, as now they start, the scene revisiting,As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing, Borne hither—ere all eludes me, hurriedly, A man—yet by these tears a little boy again, Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves, I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,Taking all hints to use them—but swiftly leaping beyond them, A reminiscence sing. ”

“I stir in bed and the memories rise out of me like a buzz of flies from a carcass. I crave to be rid of them...”

“His great carved wooden head was marked with a black eye that was more yellow than black and from this spectacular bed of bruised flesh the eye itself, sand irritated, bloodshot, as wild as a currawong's, stared out at a landscape in which the tops of fences protruded from windswept sand.”

“IF words come out of the heart, they will enter the heart, but if they come from the tongue, they will not pass beyond the ears.”

“You once told me you could stand many things.” My voice was raspy from all the emotions battering against those well-honed inner defenses.“So can I. I can stand whatever Apollyon dishes out, can take the bigotry from others over what I am, the freaky ghost juju from Marie, all thecraziness my mother can throw at me, and even the pain of my uncle dying. But the one thing that I would never, ever recover from would be losingyou. You made me promise before to go on if that happened, but Bones”—here my words broke and tears spilled down my cheeks—“I wouldn’twant to.”He’d been near the side of the bed when I started talking, but was in my arms before the first tear fell. Very softly, his lips brushed over those wetstreaks, coming back pink from the drops still shimmering on them.“No matter what happens, you will never lose me,” he whispered. “I am forever yours, Kitten, in this life or the next.”

“There were nights when I got nothing, [but] I still played. With no one to hear me and no one to pay me, and it did not matter.On those nights, the words were for me alone. They came up unbidden from my heart. They slipped over my tongue and spilled from my mouth. And because of them I, who was nothing and nobody, was a prince of Denmark, a maid of Verona, a queen of Egypt. I was a sour misanthrope, a beetling hypocrite, a conjurer's daughter, a mad and murderous king.It was dark and it was cold on those nights. The world was harsh and I was hungry. Yet I had such joy from the words. Such joy.There were times when I lifted my face to the sky, stretched my arms wide to the winter night, and laughed out loud, so happy was I.The memory of it makes me laugh now, but not from happiness.Be careful what you show the world.You never know when the wolf is watching.”