Dialectical Journal for the Soloist

"I wonder how safe it can be for a man trying to reconnect with Tchaikovsky as drug dealers, prostitutes, and hustlers work streets teeming with the lame and the afflicted." (pg. 5)

"Yeah , but I don't need the hassles I'd have to deal with going all the way over there with all of that nonsense. This isn't Cleveland, Ohio. It's a Beethoven town that doesn't have all of that snow and ice." (pg. 28)

"At Second and Hill, I've seen him draw swastikas on the pavement and call fellow African-Americans niggers. He has told me he's brown, not black, pointing to his skin as if the color should be obvious to me." (pg.35)

"" Nobody has asked me to do that in thirty years," Nathaniel says." (pg. 80)

"Disney Hall is empty when he begins playing although in Nathaniel's mind, Beethoven might still be lingering in the shadows." (pg. 109)

"I don't know what he wants more-the lesson or to hold on to our friendship." (pg.131)

"His real father was the one whose affection he most coveted."(pg.184)

"That can't be him. Should I call the police, the hospitals, or the morgue?"

(pg. 184)

"A single patron has been stirred to a level of uncontrollable passion. He scoots up in his seat as the last note is struck and before the sound subsides completely, he unleashes a lone "Bravo!" Nathaniel." (pg. 212)

"For all his troubles Nathaniel has gone years without a worry common to the rest of us." (pg. 238)

"I'd like to tell him that he's had his own kind of success , and his achievements each day and every year are as commendable as those of the musicians he admires, but for a curse , his photo might be on this wall too."

(pg. 262)

"Sibelius is drawing to a triumphant and dramatic close, much to the regret of Mr. Ayers. "I don't want this concert to ever end."" (pg. 270)