"Richard began to understand darkness: darkness as something solid and real, so much more than a simple absence of light. He felt it touch his skin, questing, moving, exploring: gliding through his mind. It slipped into his lungs, behind his eyes, into his mouth..."

"At that time, I often thought that if I had had to live in the trunk of a dead tree, with nothing to do but look up at the sky flowing overhead, little by little I would have gotten used to it."

"IT is only when we are no longer in control--because of sickness, death, or our own bad choices--that we no longer cling. The path to salvation is the path of humiliation."

"I wondered how much time they'd spent practicing entrances like this one, smoothing away their rough edges and rendering them brief but potent expressions of effortless grace. I decided to stop thinking about it, and just be grateful that there was no circumstance, however, unlikely, that could put me in their place."

"I think people just think I am crazy because they see me doing stand-up, but I am generally not. I am very sad. I'm one of those guys that lights candles and listens to Rachmaninoff."

"I have noticed that when people tell their own stories, often it has less to do with wanting to communicate an idea to another than with clarifying an emotion to themselves. Or when the subject of the story is beloved and missing, as a way to make them here and alive."