“Men with power had the responsibility to know what was best, and they so rarely did.”

“A long time ago, the act of another put the dark in his veins, and it's been there ever since. The night he lost his true love, his heart and his brain became one, so that his heart was scheming and his brain was loving. 'That doesn't sound so bad', my dream-self thought, but suddenly I could feel it, and it was very bad indeed—for when a brain loves, it is only out of obsession, and when a heart schemes, it does not mean well.”

“The human heart will clock approximately 3 billionbeats over an average lifetime. Not Johnny here, though. Just sevenhundred and nineteen million, eight hundred and ninety-eightthousand, six hundred and five, and a half.”

“Every time you go in, it's like starting over. You don't know how you did the other records. You're learning all over. It's some weird musician amnesia, or maybe the road wipes it out.”

“We will go. Nowhere we know. We don't have to talk at all.”

“So we went on what we now call "The Beck Family Church Tour" and man did we see some churches.”

“It was the first time I had spoken to them directly. In doing so, I felt myself cross a fine but very distinct line, the line between speculating about the existence of a metaphysical plane of some sort and climbing aboard for the ride. I knew I had let go of my sanity. It was terrifying. I only did it because my fear of what was happening to my body had become greater than my fear of holding on to rational beliefs.”