“They [Percy and Annabeth] held the Doors shut as the elevator shuddered and the music played, while somewhere below them, a Titan and a giant sacrificed their lives for their escape.”

“When the door closes you have two choices. Give up, or keep going. Let them shut you down or prove them wrong. We all start somewhere. It's where you end up that counts. Grammy 2013”

“I make elevating music, you make elevator music”

“And all the while, I suppose," he thought, "real people were living somewhere, and real things happening to them…”

“I'm fine!" Percy yelled out as he ran by, followed by a giant screaming bloody murder.”

“I don't play the tuba. The tuba plays me. My tuba is not actually a tuba, because it has never produced a musical sound. It is actually a giant frog pretending to be a tuba.”

“When one door closes, another opens… into another room, another space, other happenings. There are many doors to open and close in our lives. Some doors we leave ajar, where we hope and plan to return. Some doors are slammed shut decisively—"No more of that!" Some are closed regretfully, softly—"It was good, but it is over." Departures entail arrivals somewhere else. Closing a door, leaving it behind, means opening onto new vistas and ventures, new possibilities, new incentives.”

“Leo had wanted to paint a giant message on the bottom of the hull-WASSUP? with a smiley-face-but Annabeth had vetoed the idea.”

“For art, the intervention of capital always signals a further degree of mediation. To say that art is commodified is to say that a mediation, or standing-in-between, has occurred, & that this betweenness amounts to a split, & that this split amounts to "alienation". Improv music played by friends at home is less "alienated" than music played "live" at the Met, or music played through media (whether PBS or MTV or Walkman). In fact, an argument could be made that music distributed free or at cost on cassette via mail, is less alienated than live music played at some huge We Are The World spectacle or Las Vegas niteclub, even though the latter is live music played to a live audience (or at least so it appears), while the former is recorded music consumed by distant & even anonymous listeners.”

“The moment had passed, the door between the lives we could have led and the lives we led had shut in our faces.”