Oh, how scary and wonderful it is that words can change our lives simply by being next to each other.

Dad says there are more than three thousand letters in the Japanese alphabet, which could pose a problem. There are only twenty-six letters in the English alphabet, and I get into enough trouble with them as it is.

All the learnin' my father paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and an alphabet at the other.

Each letter of the alphabet is a steadfast loyal soldier in a great army of words, sentences, paragraphs, and stories. One letter falls, and the entire language falters.

One alphabet at a time, you can write an encyclopaedia. One word at a time, you can publish an entire library.

There is another alphabet, whispering from every leaf, singing from every river, shimmering from every sky.

I haven’t written you a poem in years it seems.How can it be my faultwhen the words to describe you have not yet been created?When the alphabet lacks the very letters?How can it be my fault when your loveliness only growsby the time I reach for pen and paper?Tell me how I am at faultwhen I am only a beginner in poemsand you are exquisite poetry?To write you in words is to put a veil upon you.Why must I writewhen I can kiss you instead?

Fascinated by the great symbols of the collective history, I use them as an alphabet to communicate.

YThat perfect letter. The wishbone, fork in the road, empty wineglass. The question we ask over and over. Why? Me with my arms outstretched, feet in first position. The chromosome half of us don't have. Second to last in the alphabet: almost there. Coupled with an L, let's make an adverb. A modest X, legs closed. Y or N? Yes, of course. Upside-down peace sign. Little bird tracks in the sand.Y, a Greet letter, joined the Latin alphabet after the Romans conquered Greece in the first century -- a double agent: consonant and vowel. No one used adverbs before then, and no one was happy.

I'm an amazing cook. And I'm a gentleman but can belch the entire alphabet. Classy.