Tom Noddy

“I was in my hippie stage. It was tough for my father. First it was the long hair, then the bubbles.”

“The only thing bubbles care about is wet and dry.”

“My initial attraction was just the beauty. The colors were so beautiful, the spheres were so nearly perfect.”

“I needed to entertain myself at home nights... I got a jar of bubbles.”

“I'd do the Mount St. Helen's trick, where the smoke comes out of the top. I wouldn't even have to look at people. I'd hear that 'Ahhhh!'”

“I tried to do a puppet show on the streets, and I wasn't a very good street performer. But I found that I could stand in one place in Central Park and bounce a soap bubble on my arm, and I didn't have to gather a crowd for the puppet show. I had a crowd.”

“I worked in a factory for 10 months with the aim of going traveling in Europe. I bought a bottle of bubble stuff and spent every night playing with bubbles. After 10 months, I went to Europe and did bubble shows on the street.”

“There is a dream on the street. I hear it constantly - finding a piece of land, raising food, building a house. I hear talk of hopelessness. The price of land, you know. Housing is impossible. They are trapped in a cycle. How can you ask for a job after you've been sleeping in the bushes all night?”

“I enjoy the beauty of the bubble, they're fluid and yet they have these geometric shapes so they do surprising things - two spheres become a single sphere - it's what bubbles do.”

“I took a job at a factory in New Jersey to try to save money to go to Europe. When I took the job, I set a date for quitting. I was going to hitchhike around, be a hippie, see the world. I just wanted to be responsible long enough to get up the money to get there and trip around.”

“I receive food stamps but I have never been on welfare.”

“I had to find a way to get off the streets because it was too windy. So I started organizing variety shows of street performers. I would rent a hall, cafe or bar so I could put on a show. I did that for years before the 'Tonight Show With Johnny Carson' heard about this odd thing I did with bubbles.”

“I am not too interested in leaving the street people and joining the Establishment. I prefer street folks.”

“I ended up living on Crete for eight months. I picked olives and did house painting and got broke.”

“Bubbles are round for the same reason that planets are spherical. The universe itself is like bubbles.”

“I think the best thing about a bubble is that it pops and is gone. That is what makes it so precious.”

“I had dropped out of Memphis State University after two years because I felt the real world was too exciting.”

“The mid '70s was the golden age. A lot of things were being born on the street then, and there was a lot of experimentation.”

“I was really inspired by keeping alive these things of my childhood.”

“If you stare at suds, you'll go crazy. But in soap suds, you'll find bubble cubes and many other forms. I just take those things, magnify them and sometimes blow smoke inside it so you can see it better.”