People From Buffalo

"His experience "at the center of our culture's mythmaking machinery" may have taught him more about human nature than a university career. Perhaps we should regard him as an anthropologist who has spent many years observing a strange tribe—us."

"Where did the second law of thermodynamics come from? ...The steam engine. ...The cosmos is not a steam engine."

"Aristotle and Heraclitus were both right. A equals A. But A does not equal A."

"Is A=A useful? Does logic come in handy? Is math a magnificent symbolic system with which to comprehend what's around us? And is math based on A=A? Yes. Absolutely. But math and logic are... very, very simplified representations."

"A does not equal A because of location. For example, location in time."

"The "most extreme" followers of Heraclitus said that it is impossible to fix a name to anything."

"If A is A, a philosopher should equal a philosopher. But that's not the way the cosmos works. Similar things set themselves apart from one another. ...What's more, opposites are joined at the hip. Einstein says that most creative acts come from opposition. They come from pitting yourself against someone with another point of view. They come from the law of differentiation. And that was true of Aristotle and his law of identity, his law of noncontradiction, his construction for the base for A is A. Aristotle came up with his idea... to fling a finger in the face of another philosopher [Heraclitus]..."

"Opposites work together in the very opposite of the way they seem... They work together in teams."

"From a few basic rules you can generate a cosmos."

"When you repeat an old pattern in a new location, you sometimes make something new."

"The real core of communication is what information theory's founder, Claude Shannon calls "meaning." And meaning is not covered in information theory."

"One plus one does not equal two."

"When you and I were born, only one thing was certain about the rest of our lives: that you and I would someday die. Just as a trillion, trillion, trillion (1036) microorganisms, animals and plants have died before us. ...A God who slaughters is no God at all. Or if he is... He is a God who must be stopped."

"The first two rules of science are: 1. The truth at any price including the price of your life. 2. Look at things right under your nose as if you've never seen them before, then proceed from there."

"Conformity-enforcing packs of viscious children and adults gradually shape the social complexes we know as religion, science, corporations, ethnic groups, and even nations. The tools of our cohesion include ridicule, rejection, snobbery, self-righteousness, assault, torture, and death by stoning, lethal injection, or the noose. A collective brain may sound warm and fuzzily New Age, but one force lashing it together is abuse."

"By the nineteenth century... new circumstances called for new conformity enforcers... The government locked you in a house of penitence—a penetentiary—where your feelings of remorse would theoretically pummel you without cease."

"Humor is a conformity enforcer clothed in the garb of congeniality. It focuses on others' weaknesses, disasters, stupiidities, and abnormalities."

"Sociological researchers maintain a mask of objectivity. But... when students in these movements report facts that contradict the tenets of their group's creed, they are... punished for their heresy. ...forcing them "to leave the movement." A similar mechanism of repression is at work in every scientific discipline that I know."

"Remember a networked learning machine's most basic rule: strengthen the connections to those who succeed, weaken them to those who fail."

"Through our sentences and paragraphs long-gone ghosts still have their say within the collective mind."

"The ultimate repository of herd influence is language—a device which not only condenses the opinions of those with whom we share a common vocabulary, but sums up the perceptual approach of swarms who have passed on."

"Crowds of silent voices whisper in our ears, transforming the nature of what we see and hear. Some are those of childhood authorities and heroes; others come from family and peers. The strangest emerge from beyond the grave."

"Banach recalled that one defector had stated, I didn’t abandon the USSR, the USSR abandoned me. And he recalled the oath he had taken, with perfect sincerity, at the age of eighteen: I will always be ready to come to the defense of my homeland, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics… The what? he thought now. What was that you said? The Roman Empire, was it? The Persian Empire, the Hittites?"

"We should all be getting insanity danger pay."

"Finehouse relaxed in his own seat. They had all certainly failed. But maybe sometimes, he thought, it’s a good thing, on the whole, to have closed a knife that someone else had opened."

"“Under what circumstances do you think you might want to…return to the real world?” The real world and I never did get along, she thought. “I can’t imagine,” she said."

"“William will marry eventually,” he said in a quieter tone. He’ll try to have children—he doesn’t believe any of this.” “Not even in God,” said Maria sadly, shaking her head, “who is our only hope.” “And an unhelpfully remote and theoretical hope, at that,” Gabriel snapped."

"He always had to use holy water—real holy water, from gallon jugs he filled from the silver urn at St. Anne’s—but though it impressed the customers, all he could see that it actually did was get stuff wet."

"“When did you…die?” “I don’t know. Sometime besides now.”"

"It always upset me to consider how thoroughly even the keenest-edged minds are at the mercy of hormones and such biological baggage. We are all indeed windowless gonads, as Leibniz nearly said."

"“And you’ve never married.” “I don’t know any women well enough to hate ’em that much.”"

"“Solipsism,” said Felise. “I thought that too, for a while, but it was so obvious that my cat didn’t think so, didn’t think I was the only thing in the universe, that I decided it wasn’t true.”"

"Love isn’t in the category of normal things. Not any worthwhile kind of love, anyway."

"You protect the ones you love. He clung to the thought. Even if they ignorantly resent you for it."

"“Nolo contendere spelled backward is reincarnation.” “Uh—no it’s not.” “Yes it is. I heard it on the radio.”"

"“Yes, you’re right, I did kill her, I do remember. With a gun. She disrespected me.” He nodded. “One does what one has to do—I don’t blame myself. I was always true to my own conscience.” The last sentences had a rote sound, as if he’d said them many times. “Your conscience? You were always true to your, your narcissism.”"

"“There’s something you should know about me.” “What’s that?” “I don’t know, but you should know it.”"

"“Work out your own damnation,” he said breathlessly, “in fear and trembling.”"

"Biscuit sighed and lifted from the mantle the glass box with Grandpa Coldharp’s oracular penny in it. It was an Indian head penny, minted in 1909, and when the box was shaken the penny bounced around inside but always came up heads; the family tradition was that you could ask it any question, as long as the answer was yes."

"What would Dad say, Frank wondered briefly, if he knew I was making a living as an art forger? He’d understand. As he once told me, while squinting against the hideous sunlight of a cold morning, “Frankie, if it was easy they'd have got somebody else to do it.”"

"“This fruit syrup stuff is no good for smoking; it’s only fit for impressing ignorant girls.” Tyler shrugged, as if to say that that was reason enough to smoke it right there."

"When the story was finished, Orcrist shook his head wonderingly. “The Fates must have something planned for you, Frank.” “I hope it’s something quiet.”"

"Art, like a lot of things, is a lost art."

"“What was that building?” Thomas asked, leaning on the coping, and staring out at the conflagration. “Oh, a city office bombed by radicals,” Spencer answered, “or a radicals’ den bombed by city officers. I just hope it doesn’t spread real far on this wind.”"

"“Weird evening,” he said. “With this wind and all.” Gladhand nodded. “Several hundred years ago it was considered a valid defense in a murder trial if you could prove the Santa Ana wind was blowing when the murder was committed. The opinion was that the dry, hot wind made everybody so irritable that any murder was almost automatically excusable. Or so I’ve heard, anyway.” Thomas pondered it. “There might be something to that,” he said. “No,” Gladhand said. “There isn’t. Start sanctioning heat-of-anger crimes and you’ve lost the last hold on the set of conventions we call…society, civilization.”"

"It’s too bad she’s the first girl I ever really knew, Thomas thought. I have no way of knowing whether all girls are this way or if she’s unique. I wonder if every guy heaves an instinctive sigh of relief when he’s kissed his girl goodnight, and the door is shut, and he can go relax by himself?"

"Gladhand sipped his whiskey. “Bourbon renewal, I called this,” he said, waving his glass. “One sip and the whole neighborhood looks better.”"

"It struck Duffy that a touch of hysteria had sharpened the good fellowship tonight, as if the night wind whistling under the eaves carried some pollen of impermanence, making everyone nostalgic for things they hadn’t yet lost."

"He felt as if someone far away below in the darkness was chipping away at the pillars of his mind, and the steady crack...crack...crack of it was the only sound in the universe."

"The wages of courage is death, lad, but it’s the wages of everything else, too."