I saw that I was in danger of becoming ordinary, and I understood that from now on I would have to be vigilant.

So imagine a fire going -- wood snapping the way it does when it’s a little green — the wind rattling the windows behind the curtains -- and one of those Chopin melodies that feel like sorrow and ecstasy all mixed together pouring from the keys -- and you have my idea of happiness. Or just reading, reading and lamplight, the sound of pages turning. And so you dare to be happy. You do that thing. You dare.

In the long dusks of summer we walked the suburban streets through scents of maple and cut grass, waiting for something to happen.

I had thought that words were instruments of precision. Now I know that they devour the world, leaving nothing in its place.

I saw that I was in danger of becoming ordinary, and I understood that from now on I would have to be vigilant.

Perhaps sound is only an insanity of silence, a mad gibber of empty space grown fearful of listening to itself and hearing nothing.

We know nothing. Absolutely nothing.