“Where did you live before you came here?" I asked.
"The moon," he said smoothly. "We left because the place had no atmosphere.”

“Is everyone who lives in Ignorance like you?" asked Milo.
"Much worse," he said longingly. "But I don't live here. I'm from a place very far away called Context.”

“In the east the moon was rising, a full moon that lighted the landscape so that he could see every little clump of bushes, every grove of trees. And as he stood there, he realized with a sudden start that the moon was full again, that it was always full, it rose with the setting of the sun and set just before the sun came up, and it was always a great pumpkin of a moon, an eternal harvest moon shining on an eternal autumn world.
The realization that this was so all at once seemed shocking. How was it that he had never noticed this before? Certainly he had been here long enough, had watched the moon often enough to have noticed it. He had been here long enough — and how long had that been, a few weeks, a few months, a year? He found he did not know. He tried to figure back and there was no way to figure back. There were no temporal landmarks. Nothing ever happened to mark one day from the next. Time flowed so smoothly and so uneventfully that it might as well stand still.”

“They said you can't go to the moon. They said you can't put cheese inside a pizza crust, but NASA did it. They had to, because the cheese kept floating off in space.”

“Love your self's self where it lives.
There is no special God to refer to; or if there is,
why did I let you grow
in another place. You did not know my voice
when I came back to call. All the superlatives
of tomorrow's white tree and mistletoe
will not help you know the holidays you had to miss.”

“Where is my daddy? asked the emerald. My da?
Moll dropped a glass, which shattered.
Your father.
Yes, said the emerald, amn’t I supposed to have one?
He’s not here.
Noticed that, said the emerald.
I’m never sure what you know and what you don’t know.
I ask in true perplexity.
He was Deus Lunus. The moon god. Sometimes thought of as the man in the moon.
Bosh! said the emerald. I don’t believe it.
Do you believe I’m your mother?
I do.
Do you believe you’re an emerald?
I am an emerald.
Used to be, said Moll, women wouldn’t drink from a glass into which the moon had shone. For fear of getting knocked up.
Surely this is a superstition?
Hoo, hoo, said Moll. I like superstition.
I thought the moon was female.
Don’t be culture-bound. It’s been female in some cultures at some times, and in others, not.
What did it feel like? The experience.
Not a proper subject for discussion with a child.
The emerald sulking. Green looks here and there.
Well it wasn’t the worst. Wasn’t the worst. I had an orgasm that lasted three hours. I judge that not the worst.”

“We came into a homeless frontier, a place where we were not welcome, where nothing that lived was welcome, where thought and logic were abhorrent and we were frightened, but we went into this place because the universe lay before us, and if we were to know ourselves, we must know the universe…”

“Where we live in the world
is never one place. Our hearts,
those dogged mirrors, keep flashing us
moons before we are ready for them.”

“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, I will answer you: I am here to live out loud!”

“I was quite surprised to find out all the places that he knew
And so I asked the townfolk if his stories were true
They said— Old John was born here, he's lived here all his life
He's never had a woman, let alone a wife.
And very soon you'll find out as you check around
That no one named Corey's ever lived in this town
So I chided the old man 'bout the truth that I had heard
He smiled and said— Reality is only just a word.”