I've always been interested in the outsider.

It's good to have mysteries. It reminds us that there's more to the world than just making do and having a bit of fun.

An now the silences come in a single lifetime, in a single year... when species die, leaving a silent space in the world song that can never be filled.

I love this world ... That is what rules my life. When I die, I want to have done all in my power to leave it in a better state than it was in when I found it. At the same time I know that this can never be. The world has grown so complex that one voice can do little to alter it any longer. That doesn't stop me from doing what I can but it makes the task hard. The successes are so small, the failures so large and many. It's like trying to stem a storm with one's bare hands.

Stone walls confine a tinker; cold iron binds a witch; but a musician's music can never be fettered, for it lives first in her heart and mind.

Don't start brooding about that, too," she says. "Everybody's got a piece of stranger inside them. It's what lets us surprise ourselves and keeps things interesting." -Lupita

From the first time he'd met her, he'd sensed an air of contradiction about her. She was very much a woman, but still retained a waiflike quality. She could be brash, and at times deliberately suggestive, yet she was painfully shy. She was incredibly easy to get along with, yet she had few friends. She was a talented artist in her own right, but so self-conscious about her work that she rarely completed a piece and preferred to work with other people's art and ideas.