“I feel obligated to point out, though, that I have always been a sucker for ideas I find aesthetically pleasing. The cosmic sweep of the thing - an interstellar kula chain - affirming the differences and at the same time emphasizing the similarities of all the intelligent races in the galaxy - tying them together, building common traditions... The notion strikes me as kind of fine.”

“This ties around to my notion that the Church and rock music are very similar. There's a ritual in going to Mass and there's the ritual of going to see music or to dance at Blowoff. In reality, the stage was always the pulpit. That's what we do as musicians. We reach out and try to find or build community, and to foster a sense of belonging. When people come together and create a shared experience from a place of goodness, it can be really uplifting. Everyone can elevate together and build something that means a lot to them.”

“People have often accused me of inconsistency but i feel that i have always, at any given junction, done the same thing. Exactly what i pleased.”

“At that time I was too young for some of the troubles I was having, and I had not yet learned what to do with them. It no longer can matter what kind of troubles they were, or what finally became of them, though all my tradition, background, and training had taught me unanswerably that no one except a coward ever runs away from anything. What nonsense! They should have taught me the difference between courage and foolhardiness, instead of leaving me to find it out for myself. I learned finally that if I still had the sense I was born with, I would take off like a deer at the first warning of certain dangers.”

“There's lots of kinds of chains...You can't see most of them, the ones that bind folks together. But people build them, link by link. Sometimes the links are weak...That's another funny thing, now that I think of it. Sometimes when you mend a chain, the place where you fix it is strongest of all.”

“The rains would end, and when they did, Ian and I would be together, partners in the truest sense. This was a promise and an obligation I had never had in all my lives. Thinking of it made me feel joyful and anxious and shy and desperately impatient all at the same time—made me feel human.”