Novelists From The United States

"True civilization consists precisely of conventions, rituals, and modes of oblique communication whereby the chaos within and the void without may be expressed and contained within the harmonious consensus of shared social objectivity, thus maintaining our bubble of crafted reality, the necessary illusion."

"The appreciation of the connoisseur is the highest pleasure of the artiste."

"“Genius such as yours is a genetic gift.” “So I have heard from my parents.”"

"Even now, I cannot decide whether I was foolish dupe or noble and tragic lover. Or whether the two are one and the same."

"Any attempt at willful ignorance would now be futile or worse; the only talisman against excessive knowledge that might have puissance would be more knowledge."

"The saddest day of your life isn't when you decide to sell out. The saddest day of your life is when you decide to sell out and nobody wants to buy."

"Consider for example the past-life memories of people under hypnosis. Whether these are actual memories of previous lives or not has yet to be proved, but the fact remains, the human inconscious has a natural propensity for generating at least apparent memories of previous incarnations. In general, the orthodox psychiatric community ignores this fact. Why?"

"Michael Talbot started as a science fiction writer who later integrated many Indian ideas which he had learned via the works of other westerners such as physicist David Bohm, neurophysiologist Karl H. Pribram, and psychologist Stanislav Grof. All three had studied Indian thought for decades and later claimed originality in their 'independent' discovery of the nature of reality. Grof termed this 'holographic'."

"I was stunned. I was, and I knew it, an ordinary person who long after he was grown retained the childhood assumption that the people who largely control our lives are somehow better informed than, and have judgment superior to, the rest of us; that they are more intelligent. Not until Vietnam did I finally realize that some of the most important decision of all time can be made by men knowing really no more than, and who are not more intelligent than, most of the rest of us. That it was even possible that my own opinions and judgment could be as good as and maybe better than a politician’s who made a decision of profound consequence."

"Prostitution has little to do with morality, and everything to do with poverty."

"If women go into politics, they’ll wind up as bad as men."

"“My angel,” he says, cradling her. “I’m not an angel, Daniel.” “Yes, you are.” “No! I’m not an angel and I’m not a whore. I have intelligence and passion, strength and perseverance. I am capable of abstract thought, intellectual accomplishment, and artistic expression just like you, sir.” He ponders that as the brougham trots up Fifth Street to Market. “What shall I call you, then?” Zhu smiles. “You may call me a woman.”"

"What is the value of a life when the world is burdened with twelve billion people?"

"What is destiny for any human being? What becomes of probabilities that collapse out of the timeline? Does destiny depend on who witnesses?"

"Cosmicists speak of the Great Good, equalizing humanity with all creatures and things. Does a cosmicist accept the death of a child as the same as—say—the destruction of a butterfly? Suppose it’s a rare butterfly and the child is one of twelve billion."

"He uncorks the absinthe, pours three rounds.… “After the first glass you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. After the third, you see things as they really are, which is the most horrible thing in the world.”"

"The future survives because people care. Live responsibly or die."

"“Boredom,” he says, “is the province of the unimaginative soul.”"

"That’s what failure did to: run you out, plucked your bones, sucked you dry. It was revolting. A failed man is a loathsome thing."

"When you finally cash it in Out in Frisco; And you end this life of sin Out in Frisco; They will gently toll a bell, Plant your carcass in a dell, There’s no need to go to hell, You’re in Frisco."

"By the time people could speak about mandatory population control in a rational way, it was too late."

"Junk does that. Junk is a forge. You enter the fire and come out twisted."

"Since they were little, wishing on the first star of the evening, they both understood this: the most exciting game in life is to invent yourself."

"I have not told the police about it. Every member of the police department I have encountered during my stay in San Francisco has been nearly as surly and intractable as my rapist friend, because I look like a hippie. Each time I attempted to explain myself I was rebuffed or threatened. From this experience I am tempted to draw an odd analogy: under stress, neither the policeman nor the rapist allows an opportunity for rational communication. Each one relies on violence to make to make his impression. This is not an accident, but, rather evidence of a widespread sickness. When will violence stop long enough for communication to begin? On second thought, perhaps I am doing the police department a grave disservice in not attempting to put them in contact with the rapist. Maybe, with just a little mind-bending, that rapist would make a damned good cop, and both could swagger together, true soul brothers, under the many-colored cloak of Fascism."

"The girl with her face. A Devolved Entity Manifested from the Other Now? A demon that wants to off her? It’s like the rumors of concentration camps. So weird she can’t believe it, and so plausible she can’t afford to disbelieve it."

"The technopolistic plutocracy will dump pollutants into the atmosphere for another century on the grounds that compliance with limits is too expensive."

"I didn’t lie. I implied."

"“Acid,” says the guy with the eyes, “raises your powers of integration so that everything is important.” “Acid,” says Chiron, “lowers your powers of discrimination so that everything seems important.”"

"She’s got space. Lots of space in her house. What about in her heart?"

"You are either the man in the white coat or you are the monkey. Susan sees herself as the monkey."

"What was that teacher trying to do? That teacher was trying to break her spirit. But why would school do that? So you could become someone like her parents and believe in the things they believe in. So you won’t believe in the things they don’t believe in. And believe you’re a happy person whose life has meaning. So you will go to your job and do whatever gross thing someone tells you to do and get drunk on Friday and Saturday nights and pay taxes and bills. That’s why."

"To give is best, live responsibly or die."

"In the beginning and the end, it’s all a crapshoot. The Cosmic Mind does play dice. Loves to gamble, in fact."

"Consider impact before you consider benefit."

"When you’ve heard one bagpipe tune you’ve heard them both."

"The best thing in our show was always our move to the next town."

"I had the evening to kill, but it didn’t want to die and fought back."

"“They couldn’t promise that, could they?” “Of course not. Congress would have to declare war; this was back in the old-fashioned days when Presidents felt they had to honor their oath to abide by the Constitution.”"

"“Spare me the nostalgia.” “I hate that word. You know who uses it mostly? Time patriots. Same people who live in the best country in the world. Must be the best because that’s where they live. And they live in the best of times; has to be best because it’s their lifetime. You even suggest there just might have been better times than here and now, and it’s ‘nostalgia, nostalgia.’ Don’t even know what the word means. Means overly sentimental, for crysakes.”"

"“You’re smart, though.” “Well, yes, though I wouldn’t call for a new deal if I were dumb. Because it wouldn’t matter; I’d go along just about the way I do anyway. I’m a simple man, I like the simple life, so there’s no real need to be smart. Kind of a waste, actually. I have to be smart enough to stay simple and not get all dissatisfied. The way I’d be anyway if I were dumb. You follow me?” “I’m not sure. Maybe I’m not smart enough.”"

"Once in a while you’re momentarily conscious of being happy. But I’m superstitious, and I picture Fate—best be respectful, and use a capital F—as a misty presence somewhere up in the sky but not too far away. Always listening, alert and ready to punish forbidden optimism."

"“It’s going too far! My God, look what has already happened. The scientists make fantastic new discoveries which are immediately taken over by a group, almost a breed of men, who always know what’s best for the rest of us. Science learns how to split the atom, and they immediately know that the best thing to do with that new knowledge is to blow up Hiroshima!”"

"“Si, a lot of men make far greater sacrifices than he will. For the good of the country.” “But he wouldn’t even be consulted about it!” “Neither are they; they’re drafted into the army.” “Well, maybe they should be asked, too.” He genuinely didn’t understand. “What do you mean?” “Maybe it’s wrong to force a man to join an army and kill other people against his own wishes.” They just looked at me. What I was saying was really incomprehensible to them."

"“How is it possible for me to thank God in my heart for the food he gives me and for life, while every morsel I eat I earn with my toil and even suffering? There may be a Providence for the rich man, but every poor man must be his own Providence. As for the value of life, we poor folks don’t live for ourselves at all; we live for other people. I often wonder if the rich man who owns great blocks of stock in the road and reckons his wealth in the millions does not sometimes think, as he sits at his well-filled table and looks at the happy faces of his children, of the poor car driver who toils for his benefit for a dollar and ninety cents a day, and is lucky if he tastes meat twice a week and can give the little ones at home warm clothes and blankets for the winter.”"

"“You just think about supporting a wife and children on a dollar and ninety cents a day. Most of us work on Sundays; poor people can’t afford to rest on the Sabbath in a great city like this. Sometimes when I do have a Sunday off I go to church and take my wife and the children. It seems respectable, somehow, to go. And then the minister gets up and talks about the gratitude we ought to feel to God for all the blessings he gives us, and how thankful we ought to be that we live through his mercy. It may be very true as far as he is concerned, but I often think—and I don’t mean to be ungrateful or irreverent—that most people in this world have very little to be thankful for, and very little reason to thank God for life at all. Nine tenths of the people in New York find scarcely a moment in their lives which they can call their own, and see mighty little but misery from one year’s end to the other.”"

"I like women, I never run them down as somehow inferior to men, and I have a contempt for men who do. And I think, for one thing, that women are just as principled as men—but they sure as hell aren’t the same kind of principles."

"“Sounds impressive. And expensive.” “Not at all.” Danziger shook his head firmly. “It will cost, all told, only a little over three million dollars, less than the cost of two hours of war, and a better buy.”"

"This was in January, and we’d just had nearly a month of rain, fog, and wet chill. Then California did what it does several times every winter and for which I always forgive it anything. The rain stopped, the sun came out, the sky turned an unclouded blue, and the temperature went up into the high seventies. Everything was lush from the winter rains and there was no way to distinguish those three or four days from summer, and I walked into town in shirtsleeves."

"Some writers are belligerent about critics, some are sullen and hostile, but Max was just contemptuous. I’m sure he believed that all writers outranked all critics—well or badly, they actually do the deed which we only sit and carp about."

"But it seems too bad—this universal craving to escape what could be a rich, productive, happy world. We live on a planet well able to provide a decent life for every soul on it, which is all ninety-nine of a hundred human beings ask. Why in the world can’t we have it?"