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.

Tom Noddy

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.

Tom Noddy

It's an electrical network, isn't it? It's molecules in space... and they're linked to each other electrically. Which is to say, one end of a soap molecule is attracted to a nearby water molecule electrically. The bubble is this network. The whole thing is inter-dependent.

Tom Noddy

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.

Tom Noddy

I had this memory of being with my aunt, who I loved, you know, and watching her blow some bubbles in sunlight, and my heart fluttered when I watched her.

Tom Noddy

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.

Tom Noddy

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?

Tom Noddy

There is a lot of science in bubbles. They are just like our weather system. The earth is, in effect, trapped inside a liquid sphere, the troposphere, where our weather forms. The bright colors on the outside of a bubble are just varying thicknesses of bubble, just like the varying thicknesses of clouds.

Tom Noddy

First I got a yo-yo. I got good and then I got bored. Next I got one of those wooden paddles with a rubber ball at the end of an elastic band. I got good and then I got bored. Then I tried bubbles. I got good but I never got bored.

Tom Noddy

There's a brand, Mr. Bubble, that is sometimes called other things, like Mickey Mouse or other names. That's the stuff I use.

Tom Noddy

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

Tom Noddy

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.

Tom Noddy

On good days, I've done bubbles with as many as 38 faces - a row of pentagons, a row of hexagons, and another row of pentagons on bottom.

Tom Noddy

Bubbles are incredibly basic. We think of them in that way just because they're a kid's toy. But I think it's more basic than childhood, something primal - the liquid, the flow, the shapes. We were liquid at one point in our development.

Tom Noddy

When I do the dodecahedron with the science audiences, I'll point out that I can only do three of the five forms with bubbles, since bubbles only join at three-way corners. The two I can't do are the ones that represent water and air. That always gets a big laugh from the mathematicians. They see the irony in it.

Tom Noddy

If you look at the Karamazov Brothers on TV, they're really small and the heart is taken out of their act. That's true for most variety acts. I'm an exception. When the camera comes in close and looks at those soap bubbles, you can really see what bubbles do.

Tom Noddy

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!'

Tom Noddy

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

Tom Noddy

If you look at the soap bubbles in the sink when you're doing dishes, you'll see the incredible diversity of shapes in there. There are cubes in there; there are decahedrons and tetrahedrons; there are odd, irregular shapes without names, you know.

Tom Noddy

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.

Tom Noddy

I was never very good at stopping crowds. I started blowing bubbles to attract people.

Tom Noddy