“O time, thou must untangle this, not I.It is too hard a knot for me t'untie.”

“You untangle a knot with slow teasing, not sharp pulling, and believe me we have here a knot such as I have never seen. But I will unpick it. I will.”

“I know why writers write- they write to untangle the knots in their hearts.”

“O God, help me to win, but in thy wisdom if thou willest me not to win, then O God, make me a good loser.”

“I tried hard to forget, but there remained inside me a vague knot of air.And as time went by, the knot began to take on a clear and simpleform, a form that I am able to put into words, like this:Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life.It's a cliché translated into words, but at the time I felt it not as wordsbut as that knot of air inside me. Death exists - in a paperweight, infour red and white balls on a pool table - and we go on living andbreathing it into our lungs like fine dust.”

“We must all allow ourselves the fantasy of projection from time to time, a chance to clothe ourselves in the imaginary gowns and tails of what has never been and never will be. This gives some polish to our tarnished lives, and sometimes we may choose one dream over another, and in the choosing find some respite from ordinary sadness. After all, we, none of us, can ever untangle the knot of fictions that make up that wobbly thing we call a self.”