“Dear reader dearest inscrutable listener inscrutably harking or regrettably more likely not harking except in that chamber in me that posits you with me every moment I’m speaking or trying to speak
Dear reader who may or may not be with me I still remember how once you weren’t here at all so I’d make up a mythical listener and there were good sides to that because I myself could choose
the degree of your presence the level of your attention from zero to fifty but then before I knew it you were somehow actually with me though it’s still a mystery as to why you decided to join me.”

“When I speak, you must not listen to the words, my dear. Listen to the Silence.”

“When you and the truth speak to me, I do not listen to the truth. I listen to you.”

“How many times have you sat across from me?
And how many times have you told me you were leaving?
I'm not trying to listen cuz it's all the same.
And why, why are you constantly believing
That I, I could ever give you what you needed?
Baby, baby please don't put your faith in me.”

“…even then I knew that I was fortunate. Because you were the first guy who wasn't constantly trying to impress me. You accepted who you were, but more than that, you accepted me for me.”

“What the Universities have mainly done—what I have found the University did for me, was that it taught me to read in various languages and various sciences, so that I could go into the books that treated of these things, and try anything I wanted to make myself master of gradually, as I found it suit me. Whatever you may think of all that, the clearest and most imperative duty lies on every one of you to be assiduous in your reading; and learn to be good readers, which is, perhaps, a more difficult thing than you imagine. Learn to be discriminative in your reading—to read all kinds of things that you have an interest in, and that you find to be really fit for what you are engaged in.”

“Listen to me, convict. I have not traveled all this way to listen to your war stories. So shut your trap before I shut it for you.

Commander Julius Root”

“I will come back as a little breeze. You will feel me on your face, and you will know that I am still listening. So you can still talk to me.”

“Walkin' on a city street who would think you could ever be touched
By a total stranger, not me
But when you came up to me that day and I listened to your story
It reminded me so much of myself
It wasn't what you said but the way it felt to me
About a search and a journey just like mine.”

“The world is dark and light is precious. Come closer, dear reader. You must trust me. I am telling you a story.”