“That’s how I lived through--no--I survived that harsh winter in solitary confinement. It gave me the mental strength to push forward through any situation I faced in the future.”

“I realize that my experiences of Gaelic are like the view from the door of my basement apartment: a sliver of sky and the row houses across the street. I can never see the whole world that way. Yet Gaelic gives me many glimpses into worlds just beyond.”

“So, I fashion from her missteps a different kind of compass, revealing where a teller of stories should tread compassionately, inquisitively, conscientiously—or not at all.”

“I wondered if I was the one who had taken a funny turn. One can take a turn for the worse or the better. But taking a “funny turn” is ambiguous and enigmatic. I wondered what the original Italian phrasing was for this.”

“His compositions reinvented classical music, perhaps because he no longer could hear what others were creating.”

“Eno, who is credited with coining the term “ambient music,” suggested that it should, paradoxically, be inconspicuous and stimulating at the same time.”