...talked itself to the edge of the abyss

And I think we also can appreciate the simple pathos of Heidegger's disenchantment with philosophy. At times, of course, it is little more than the protest of a weary man, perhaps aware of his own moral and intellectual failures, imploring the voices of philosophy and ideology to cease their babbling. Western humanity has talked its way right to the edge of the abyss - so, please, be silent now. Wait. Listen. Let being speak, let the world be a world again, let the divine show itself to us if it will. But stop talking for a while.

—David Bentley Hart, "A Philosopher in the Twilight" (February 2011)

'laughter is always at our elbows'

... laughter for its own sake is never far away from us; in spite of all the misery of our lives quiet laughter is always, so to speak, at our elbows ...

—Franz Kafka, "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk" (1924) (trans. Willa & Edwin Muir 1948)

'as many as a thousand shoulders'

Our life is very uneasy, every day brings surprises, apprehensions, hopes and terrors, so that it would be impossible for a single individual to bear it all did he not always have by day and night the support of his fellows; but even so it often becomes very difficult; frequently as many as a thousand shoulders are trembling under a burden that was really meant only for one pair.

—Franz Kafka, "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk" (1924) (trans. Willa & Edwin Muir 1948)

'Don't forget the fingers.'

[Ellen Burka] also choreographed part of the long program that helped Dorothy Hamill win the 1976 Olympics, as well as her short program. 

"Don't forget the fingers," Hamill remembers Burka telling her in her autobiography, On and Off the Ice. "The hands. The arms. Feel the music in every part of you. Let it flow out of your fingers."

—Beverly Smith, Talking Figure Skating: Behind the Scenes in the World's Most Glamorous Sport (1997)