Any time a magnet wiggles, no matter how small it is, or how fast or slow it wiggles, it makes some kind of light. Most light is made by little magnets called molecules, and our eyes are tuned to a very narrow range of it.

I encountered a glowing green raccoon riding a neon orange motorcycle at my cabin in the woods of northern California around midnight one night in 1985. The raccoon proceeded to metamorphose into a singing dolphin at the stroke of midnight.

It only needs to be convincing to the misinformed voter. Some of the big truths voters have accepted have little or no scientific basis. And these include the belief that AIDS is caused by human immunodeficiency virus, the belief that fossil fuel emissions are causing global warming, and the belief that the release of chlorofluorocarbons into the atmosphere has created a hole in the ozone layer. The illusions go even deeper into our everyday lives when they follow us to the grocery store.

The biggest battle I fought with the danger officer was over the fact that I insisted on keeping my lunch and a case of Beck’s beer in the same fridge in which I kept my radioactive isotopes.

I’ve been writing about my boyhood, when I was a little kid back on my grandfather’s farm where we didn’t know about black widow spiders or all that stuff. But writing about that is so easy.

I’m really optimistic in the mornings.

I’m not driven by being understood.

I love a microphone and a big crowd; I’m an entertainer, I guess.

I think I might have been stupid in some respects, it if weren’t for my psychedelic experiences.

Fish don’t know much about water, and people didn’t know much about air.