Date: March 11, 1982

''The mind is like a parachute -- it only functions when it's open."

— Duncan, Amy

Date: 1984

"His brain was deep-fried. No, he decided, it had been thrown into hot fat and left there, and the fat had cooled, a thick dull grease congealing on wrinkled lobes, shot through with greenish-purple flashes of pain."

— Gibson, William (b. 1948)

Date: 1984

"He still had his anger. That was like being rolled in some alley and waking to discover your wallet still in your pocket, untouched."

— Gibson, William (b. 1948)

Date: 1984

"That whole private mythology, in which I believe totally, is a collaboration between one's conscious mind and those obsessions that, one by one, present themselves as stepping-stones."

— Ballard, J. G. (1930-2009)

Date: 1984

"I suppose people--certainly imaginative writers--who consciously exploit their own obsessions do so in part because those obsessions lie like stepping-stones in front of them, and their feet are drawn towards them."

— Ballard, J. G. (1930-2009)

Date: 1984

"Imagination is the shortest route between any two conceivable points, and more than equal to any physical rearrangement of the brain's functions."

— Ballard, J. G. (1930-2009)

Date: September 29, 1985

"My father used to say, 'Your mind is like a parachute. If it won't open when you need it, it is not much good.' I have an open mind."

— Wilson, George C.

Date: 1985

"If the soul is just the story that it tells, then / Did his answer, his smile, / The way he took his comb out of his back pocket / And slicked his hair back, / Spite the soul with something like the soul?"

— Levis, Larry Patrick (1946-1996)

Date: 1985

"The Self sounds like a guy raking leaves / Off his walk. It sounds like the scrape of the rake. / The soul is just a story the scraping tells."

— Levis, Larry Patrick (1946-1996)

Date: 1988

"My rank aroma was the perfume my soul exuded, devotion's air."

— Erdrich, Louise (b. 1954)