Five mysteries hold the keys to the unseen: the act of love, and the birth of a baby, and the contemplation of great art, and being in the presence of death or disaster, and hearing the human voice lifted in song.

—Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet

I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art.

—Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita