“So far I’m not seeing a lot of difference between me and a carnival con-man.”

“At seventeen, I’m in-between. Staring at the carnival from a distance. Not sure if I want to go forward and become an adult; liking the view too much to turn back.”

“The difference between you and everyone else, is everyone else. And that’s a lot, so you should feel special.”

“On Saturday night, I would see men lusting after half-naked girls dancing at the carnival, and on Sunday morning when I was playing organ for tent-show evangelists at the other end of the carnival lot, I would see these same men sitting in the pews with their wives and children, asking God to forgive them and purge them of carnal desires. And the next Saturday they'd be back at the carnival or some other place of indulgence. I knew then that the Christian church thrives on hypocrisy, and that man's carnal nature will out no matter how much it is purged or scoured by any white-light religion.”

“It occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well.”

“There's a lot of difference between listening and hearing.”