Very early in life I became fascinated with the wonders language can achieve. And I began playing with words.

Every word first looks around in every direction before letting itself be written down by me.

I look for the words, Professor. I look for the words because I believe that the words is the way to your heart.

With words at your disposal, you can see more clearly. Finding the words is another step in learning to see.

Most of the time I am sunk in thought, but at some point on each walk there comes a moment when I look up and notice, with a kind of first-time astonishment, the amazing complex delicacy of the words, the casual ease with which elemental things come together to form a composition that is — whatever the season, wherever I put my besotted gaze — perfect.

The young writer should learn to spot them: words that at first glance seem freighted with delicious meaning, but that soon burst in the air, leaving nothing but a memory of bright sound.

Every word was once a poem.

I think I fell in love with words before I fell in love with music.

This, I thought, is how great visionaries and poets see everything — as if for the first time. Each morning they see a new world before their eyes; they do not really see it, they create it.

At that moment the power of reading made itself clear and real to me. If I could see the words, then no one could control them or what I got from them. They couldn’t even know if I was merely seeing them or reading them,

Even as I think these words for the first time, the me who is my future self is remembering me thinking these words for the first time.

I discovered books and read forever

I love words. I thank you for hearing my words. I want to tell you something about words that I think is important. Words are my work, they’re my play. They’re my passion. Words are all we have really. We have thoughts, but thoughts are fluid. And, then we assign a word to a thought and we’re stuck with that word for that thought. So be careful with words. The same words that hurt can heal.

I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine.