“The shit is *not* the shit (this was Mo's mantra,) the *pigeon* is the shit.”

“The shit is not the shit, the pigeon is the shit.”

“I'm serious. I don't know how you work like that. My school shit is better organized, and I'm not in the business of World Domination.”

“These children spend so much time demanding the status of adulthood from you - even when it isn't in your power to bestow it - and then when the real shit hits the fan, when you need them to be adults, suddenly they're children again.”

“A neutral place. The chances of finding one these days are slim, maybe even slimmer than Archie’s pinball trick. The sheer quantity of shit that must be wiped off the slate if we are to start again as new. Race. Land. Ownership. Faith. Theft. Blood. And more blood. And more. And not only must the place be neutral, but the messenger who takes you to the place, and the messenger who sends the messenger. There are no people or places like that left…”

“[Forster] quotes approvingly from this discussion, from The Magic Flute [by Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson]"Lord Buddha was your gospel true?""True and False." "What was true in it?""Selflessness and Love." "What false?""Flight from Life.”

“The experience of listening to an hour's music you barely know in a dead language you do not understand is a strange falling and rising experience. For minutes at a time you are walking deep into it, you seem to understand. Then, without knowing how or when exactly, you discover you have wandered away, bored or tired from the effort, and now you are nowhere near the music.”