“Think of a rock polisher, one of those drums, goes round and round, rolls twenty-four/seven, full of water and rocks and gravel. Grinding it all up. Round and round. Polishing those ugly rocks into gemstones. That’s the earth. Why it goes around. We’re the rocks. And what happens to us—the drama and pain and joy and war and sickness and victory and abuse—why, that’s just the water and sand to erode us. Grind us down. To polish us up, nice and bright.”

“In the big factory of perfecting human souls, the Earth was kind of tumbler. The sale as the kind people use to polish rocks. All souls come here to rub the sharp edges off each other. This isn't suffering. It's erosion.”

“Just each of us being me, me, me first. The murderer, the victim, the witness each of us thinks our role is the lead.Probably that goes for anybody in the world.”

“We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”

“I’ve met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, “Why?”Why did I cause so much pain?Didn’t I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness?Can’t I see how we’re all manifestations of love?I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God’s got this all wrong.We are not special.We are not crap or trash, either.We just are.We just are, and what happens just happens.And God says, “No, that’s not right.”Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can’t teach God anything.”

“We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war. Our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.”

“As young people we want something to slow us down and keep us trapped in one place long enough to look below the surface of the world. That disaster is a car crash or a war. To make us sit still. It can be getting cancer or getting pregnant. The important part is how it seems to catch us by surprise. That disaster stops us from living the life we'd planned as children - a life of constant dashing around.”