I liked the ceremony, the ritual of preparing cocaine, as much as doing it. I did it for a year, loved it, then stopped. Now I feel the same way about cooking.

The outer affects the inner.

The sauce to meat is ceremony; Meeting were bare without it.

The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual.

When I was younger, my whole sense of self-worth was based on whether or not I was working, which was awful. And I had a baby at 20 years old, so it wasn't just about me. At around the age of 30 there was a stretch where I wasn't working - certainly not on anything I liked, anyway - and I started to do other things.

Ritual and ceremony are powerful bonding tools. They result in a sense of community, a feeling of unity far beyond what you might expect.