The slaves were simply turned loose without any property. They were easily recognizable. They were black. They were suddenly free to go exploring.
Their imaginations were flywheels on the ramshackle machinery of the awful truth.
If you can do no good, at least do no harm.
There is a riddle about a man who is locked in a room with nothing but a bed and a calendar, and the question is: How does he survive? The answer is: He eats dates from the calendar and drinks from the springs of the bed.
Much of the conversation in the country consisted of lines from television shows, both past and present.
I have had all I can stand of not taking myself seriously.
In the era of big brains, life stories could end up any which way. Look at mine.
He ate a pear. It was a hard one. It fought back against his grinding teeth. It snapped in juicy protest.
And I apologize to all of you who are the same age as my grandchildren. And many of you reading this are the same age as my grandchildren. They, like you, are being royally shafted and lied to by our Baby Boomer corporations and government.
All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.
Everything that ever has been always will be, and everything that ever will be always has been.
Everybody knows that the dumbest people in any American university are in the education department, and English after that.
Is there nothing I have done which will outlive me, other than the opprobrium of my first wife and sons and grandchildren? Do I care? Doesn’t everybody? Poor me. Poor practically everybody, with so little durable good to leave behind!
Earthlings are the great explainers, explaining why this event is structured as it is, telling how other events may be achieved or avoided.
People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore.
Do I resent rich people? No. The best or worst I can do is notice them. I agree with the great Socialist writer George Orwell, who felt that rich people were poor people with money.
It shook up Trout to realize that even he could bring evil into the world – in the form of bad ideas.
This person has just arrived on this planet, knows nothing about it, has no standards by which to judge it. This person does not care what it becomes. It is eager to become absolutely anything it is supposed to be.
I am a very bad scientist. I will do anything to make a human being feel better, even if it’s unscientific. No scientist worthy of the name could say such a thing.
She broke my heart. I didn’t like that much. But that was the price. In this world, you get what you pay for.