“How do you know, poor fool? Perhaps out there, somewhere, someone is sighing for your absence'; and with this thought, my soul begins to breathe.”

“Whose work is it but your own to open your eyes? But indeed the business of the universe is to make such a fool out of you that you will know yourself for one, and begin to be wise.”

“Do you know what it's like to be suddenly poor and not know how to live poor?”

“The soul knows no greater anguish than to take a breath that begins with love and ends with grief.”

“How do you know that you are not part of a book? That someone's not reading your story right now?”

“… with the end of my breath, which is the beginning of yours.”

“It's not your fault. You had no way of knowing I'd traded my soul. It's not exactly how I start out conversations. Hi, I'm Kyrian. I have no soul. What about you? (Kyrian)”

“Somewhere in his body--perhaps in the marrow of his bones--he would continue to feel her absence.”

“This is how you knew what a fool was—someone who didn't know what mattered to him in the long run”

“My soul would sing of metamorphoses.
But since, o gods, you were the source of these
bodies becoming other bodies, breathe
your breath into my book of changes: may
the song I sing be seamless as its way
weaves from the world's beginning to our day.”