We were as Hansel and Gretel and we ventured out into the black forest of the world.

In the war of magic and religion, is magic ultimately the victor? Perhaps priest and magician were once one, but the priest, learning humility in the face of God, discarded the spell for prayer.

I learned from him that often contradiction is the clearest way to truth

Why can't I write something that would awake the dead? That pursuit is what burns most deeply.

Who can know the heart of youth but youth itself?

It was like being at an Arabian hoedown with a band of psychedelic hillbillies (p. 171).

He wasn't supposed to die, ' he cried out, somewhat desperately, petulantly, like a spoiled child. But I could hear other thoughts racing between us.Neither are you.Neither am I.

He wrote me a note to say we would create art together and we would make it, with or without the rest of the world.

I preferred an artist who transformed his time, not mirrored it.

It had started with the moon, inaccessible poem that it was.

I had no proof that I had the stuff to be an artist, though I hungered to be one

Religious unity does not come so easily. It is not a piece of pie, which you can buy in the shop. It takes sincere efforts from every single human being on this planet.

The court system is the graveyard where Trump's fanciful delusions will be laid to rest.

I believe in low lights and trick mirrors.

That an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error.

Never buy anything from someone who is out of breath.

Believe me, I didn't think there was some princely family I belonged to.

Closing one's ears to the complaints of partisans would also entail closing one's mind to the substance of their arguments.

Just because something makes you smile or laugh ... doesn't mean it's a joke.

Losing hope is not so bad. There's something worse: losing hope and hiding it from yourself.

Too many things are occurring for even a big heart to hold.