"That, my friends, is what a conversation is: that inability to tear ourselves away from ourselves- then suddenly, those words from someone else that touch us deeply and continue thier chrmed progression within us."

"Silence is the courtesy of the soul."

"Because once you bypass the thousand and one reasons for keeping your trap shut, to converse is to commit yourself, take risks, say who you are, insofar as you have any idea."

"The mystery of speech lies in its precision, not its obscurity."

"Afraid of this world that will crash straight into a wall if I take my eyes off it for one second. So I keep my eyes open until it hurts and smile to placate disaster."

"People say I'm wrestling with the idea of death. Of course. But gracefully, admit it. People say I no longer believe in the heavens, and not much in men. It's true. But I love madly, the colors of the former and the complexity of the latter."

"Conversation is am insomniac. It keeps speech awake."

"I shout this, I proclaim it, at the risk of being taken for a madman by those who kneel in silence and abandon their desire for truth and freedom. Which we love, I insist, which we sometimes approach but never pluck, for like flowers, once picked, they wither and die, so we week them constantly, we seek them eternally, without ever reaching them, except in infinity."

from The Lecture by Lydie Salvayre