“Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. They always want one to be perfectly dumb a the very moment when one is longing to be absolutely deaf.”

“Yes, very sensible… People die of common sense, Dorian, one lost moment at a time. Life is a moment. There is no hereafter. So make it burn always with the hardest flame.”

“Very successful people are absurdly selective.”

“We were like deaf people trying to dance to a beat we couldn't hear, long after the music actually stopped.”

“I use the grotesque the way I do because people are deaf and dumb and need help to see and hear.”

“You want to know if the heart of a man or a woman can contain enough love for more than one person? … I think it's perfectly possible as long as one of those people doesn’t turn into … a Zahir.”

“It is perfectly monstrous,' he said, at last, 'the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.”

“I think sometimes people think cheerful is a synonym for dumb, so no one is ever cheerful.”

“People are going deaf because music is played louder and louder, but because they're going deaf, it has to be played louder still.”

“Do deaf people have alarm clocks? I asked a deaf guy that one time, the sumbitch just stared at me.”