“The technological society has walked off the court, so to speak, but they've left all the basketballs behind. Someone will come along who remembers the game and teach it to the rest again.”

“Sooner or later everything you thought you'd left behind comes around again. For good or ill, it comes around again.”

“Best not to look back. Best to believe there will be happily ever afters all the way around - and so there may be; who is to say there will not be such endings? Not all boats which sail away into darkness never find the sun again, or the hand of another child; if life teaches anything at all, it teaches that there are so many happy endings that the man who believes there is no God needs his rationality called into serious question..”

“She felt like someone who drowns remembering what it was like to still be on the boat, so calm and at ease, so carelessly safe”

“If life teaches anything at all it teaches that there are so many happy endings that the man who believes that there is no God needs his rationality called into serious question.”

“Africa.That bird came from Africa.But you mustn't cry for that bird, Paulie, because after a while it forgot about how the veldt smelled at noonday, and the sounds of the wildebeests at the waterhole, and the high acidic smell of the ieka-ieka trees in the great clearing north of the Big road. After awhile it forgot the cerise color of the sun dying behind Kilimanjaro. After awhile it only knew the muddy, smogged-out sunsets of Boston, that was all it remembered and all it wanted to remember. After awhile it didn't want to go back anymore, and if someone took it back and set it free it would only crouch in one place, afraid and hurting and homesick in two unknown and terribly ineluctable directions until something came along and killed it.'Oh Africa, oh, shit,' he said in a trembling voice.”

“Commala-come-comeThere’s a young man with a gun.Young man lost his honeyWhen she took it on the run.Commala-come-one!She took it on the run!Left her baby lonelyBut he baby ain’t done.Commala-come-cooThe wind’ll blow ya through.Ya gotta go where ka’s wind blows yaCause there’s nothin else to do.Commala-come-two!Nothin else to do!Gotta go where ka’s wind blows yaCause there’s nothin else to do.Commala-come-keyCan you tell me what ya see?Is it ghosts or just the mirrorThat makes ya wanna flee?Commala-come-three!I beg ya, tell me!Is it ghosts or just your darker selfThat makes ya wanna flee?Commala-come-koWhatcha doin at my do’?If ya doan tell me now, my friendI’ll lay ya on de flo’.Commala-come-fo’!I can lay ya low!The things I’ve do to such as youYou never wanna know.Commala-gin-jiveAin’t it grand to be alive?To look out on DiscordiaWhen the Demon Moon arrives.Commala-come-five!Even when the shadows rise!To see the world and walk the worldMakes ya glad to be alive.Commala-mox-nix!You’re in a nasty fix!To take a hand in traitor’s gloveIs to grasp a sheaf of sticks!Commala-come-six!Nothing there but thorns and sticks!When your find your hand in traitor’s gloveYou’re in a nasty fix.Commala-loaf-leaven!They go to hell or up to heaven!The the guns are shot and the fires hot,You got to poke em in the oven.Commala-come-seven!Salt and yow’ for leaven!Heat em up and knock em downAnd poke em in the oven.Commala-ka-kateYou’re in the hands of fate.No matter if it’s real or not,The hour groweth late.Commala-come-eight!The hour groweth late!No matter what shade ya castYou’re in the hands of fate.Commala-me-mineYou have to walk the line.When you finally get the thing you needIt makes you feel so fine.Commala-come-nine!It makes ya feel fine!But if you’d have the thing you needYou have to walk the line.Commala-come-kenIt’s the other one again.You may know her name and faceBut that don’t make her your friend.Commala-come-ten!She is not your friend!If you let her get too closeShe’ll cut you up again!Commala-come-callWe hail the one who made us all,Who made the men and made the maids,Who made the great and small.Commala-come-call!He made us great and small!And yet how great the hand of fateThat rules us one and all.Commala-come-ki,There’s a time to live and one to die.With your back against the final wallYa gotta let the bullets fly.Commala-come-ki!Let the bullets fly!Don’t ‘ee mourn for me, my ladsWhen it comes my day to die.Commala-come-kass!The child has come at last!Sing your song, O sing it well,The child has come to pass.Commala-come-kass,The worst has come to pass.The Tower trembles on its ground;The child has come at last.Commala-come-come,The battle’s now begun!And all the foes of men and roseRise with the setting sun.”