I was reading the beginning of your description here, and when you got to the line you supplied, I immediately started thinking of The Last Unicorn, which I've been experiencing anew as tinybuffalo has been reading aloud for a small audience, a chapter at a time.

I loved The Last Unicorn when I first read it, but I missed whole chunks of Meaning, which this time round are hitting like tidal waves. Hearing it in slow time, the combination of the beauty of the language and the intensity of what he's saying. Whoa. And that bit about Schmendrick's curse was one of those things.