It is a second-generation Seattle-scene record label; all of its artists are young people who came to Seattle after they graduated from college in search of the legendary Seattle music scene and discovered that it didn't really exist--it was just a couple of dozen guys who sat around playing guitar in one another's basements--and so who were basically forced to choose between going home in ignominy or fabricating the Seattle Music scene of their imagination from whole cloth. This led to the establishment of any number of small clubs, and the foundation of many bands, that were not rooted in any kind of authentic reality whatsoever but merely reflected the dreams and aspiration of pan-global young adults who had flocked to Seattle on the same chimera hunt.

— Neal Stephenson

It’s funny how books can change you. You open up a book and one minute you are who you’ve always been, then you read some random passage, and you become someone else.

— Brian Joyce

Popularity is like a girl in class that you can't ignore. She gives you eyes when no one looks then turns to her friends and laughs some more.

— Brian Joyce

Society gets by from the help of its citizens.

— Brian Joyce

That night, he laid in his bed thinking about all the possibilities. They came like waves in his mind. At first, they came slow, then gradually built up speed, cresting into full on dreams, until finally, they broke onto the shore with all of their reality. First dreams, then nightmares.

— Brian Joyce

The best songs are written through our anger. Even though feelings change over time, our lyrics will always remain inside the song as a way of reminding us how far and how much stronger we've become since then.

— Kastle King

The price of coming from a small town is that everyone knows your story. Your book has been read, shelved, dusted, and re-read by everybody.

— Brian Joyce

There are moments in our lives that define the people we will become in the future, like a symptom before an ailment, or the catalyst before the cure.

— Brian Joyce

What were we, but kids with apartments and jobs anyway?

— Brian Joyce

You know-portraits are odd things." "How do you figure?" I asked. "Well at the time, that portrait told the whole story. It told the truth. We were a family-a happy family. Now that same portrait just looks like a lie.

— Brian Joyce