“Now about this turtle. I think I’m gonna name it Oliver.”“Why’s that?”“Because he’s leaving little turtle poop ‘Oliver’ his terrarium.”

“There is an Indian story -- at least I heard it as an Indian story -- about an Englishman who, having been told that the world rested on a platform which rested on the back of an elephant which rested in turn on the back of a turtle, asked (perhaps he was an ethnographer; it is the way they behave), what did the turtle rest on? Another turtle. And that turtle? 'Ah, Sahib, after that it is turtles all the way down”

“She reminds me of a turtle; you can never quite know wha ta turtle is thinking.”

“The turtle stands on a turtle, which stands on a turtle. That's the universe in whole, boy. It's turtles all the way down.”

“And the turtles, of course...all the turtles are free, as turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.”

“The next day, a dead turtle was left on my doorstep as a warning. I couldn’t figure out as a warning for what, and I guess whoever was watching me picked up on that, because the next morning there was another dead turtle, but this one had several sheets of paper glued to it’s back leg. The pieces of paper contained a long footnoted explanation of all the symbolism involved. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me. The turtle was the “turtle of inquisitiveness” and the cheese smeared on it’s shell meant something, and the little cowboy boots on its feet meant something. Everything about this animal meant something apparently to whoever sent it. I still didn’t get what it was all about. The next morning there was no turtle. Somebody just shot at me from the bushes.”