Jan Morris: Sydney

Darcy O'Brien: A Way Of Life, Like Any Other

Karel Capek: War With The Newts

"It always used to be nothing but sea, and that's how it's going to be again. It's the end of the world. Somebody told me once that even Prague was seabed once. I think it must have been the newts that did it then as well. I should never have let that sea captain in to see Mr. Bondy. There was something that kept telling me, don't do it, and then I thought to myself, perhaps I'll get a tip from this sea captain. And then, he never did. That's how you destroy the whole world you see, all for nothing . . . " The old man gulped back something like a tear. "I know, I know full well, we've all had it. It's the end of the world, and it's all my fault . . . "

Celeste Albaret: Monsieur Proust

Now I realize M. Proust's whole object, his whole great sacrifice for his work, was to set himself outside time in order to rediscover it. When there is no more time, there is silence. He needed that silence in order to hear only the voices he wanted to hear, the voices that are in his books. I didn't think about that at the time. But now when I'm alone at night and can't sleep, I seem to see him as he surely must have been in his room after I had left him -- alone too, but in his own night, working at his notebooks when, outside, the sun had long been up.

Will Hermes: Love Goes to Buildings on Fire: Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever

La Monte Young was the best drug connection in New York. He had the best drugs - the best! Great big acid pills, and opium, and grass, too. When you went over to la Monte and Marian's place you were there for a minimum of seven hours - probably end up to be two or three days. It was a pad with everything on the floor and beads and great hashish and street people coming and scoring, and this droning music going on.

- Billy Name