“The essential difference with Builders is that they've found something to do that matters to them and are therefore so passionately engaged, they rise above the personality baggage that would otherwise hold them down. Whatever they are doing has so much meaning to them that the cause itself provides charisma and they plug into it as if it was electrical current.”

“When you put together deep knowledge about a subject that intensely matters to you, charisma happens. You gain courage to share your passion, and when you do that, folks follow.”

“A mockingbird has moved into our neighborhood. It perches atop a telephone pole behind our backyard. Every morning it is the first thing I hear. It is impossible to be unhappy when listening to a mockingbird. So stuffed with songs it is, it can't seem to make up it's mind which to sing first, so it sings them all, a dozen different songs at once, in a dozen different voices. On and on it sings without a pause, so peppy, even frantic, as if its voice alone is keeping the world awake.”

“Booze has a different effect when you're, like, ten. Its doesn't round out the edges so much as wash you right out of the picture.”

“They're so broke that they've actually cut essential services. In many places, they've cut policemen, because, who the fuck needs them? Or firemen, son of a bitch, it's much more fun watching something burn down.”

“I am so busy doing nothing... that the idea of doing anything - which as you know, always leads to something - cuts into the nothing and then forces me to have to drop everything.”

“What is this obsession people have with books? They put them in their houses like they're trophies. What do you need it for after you read it?”