And this is the straight dope, right here. These people are not exactly human. They don the dress but they’re like monkeys dolled up in the circus. They’re clever and can learn, but that is all.
Freiherr Hugo Reiss made a notation on his pad. Broach subject with SS General Otto Skorzeny, or better yet Otto Ohlendorf at Amt III of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt. Didn’t Ohlendorf head Einsatzgruppe D?
But a mood like that,” Rick said, “you’re apt to stay in it, not dial your way out. Despair like that, about total reality, is self-perpetuating.
Kevin is right about his cat. It’s all there in his dead cat. The Great Judge can’t answer Kevin: ‘Why did my cat die?’ Answer: ‘Damned if I know.’ There is no answer; there is only a dead animal that just wanted to cross the street. We’re all animals that want to cross the street only something mows us down half-way across that we never saw.
Most self-indulgent of all Nazis, and is in sharp contrast to late H. Himmler, who lived in personal want at low salary. Herr Goring representative of spoils mentality, using power as means of acquiring personal wealth. Primitive mentality, even vulgar, but quite intelligent man, possibly most intelligent of all Nazi chiefs. Object of his drives: self-glorification in ancient emperor fashion.
Sheep are funny,” the Whitlock said. “Now, you look at how they behave when you throw some grub over the fence to them, such as corn stalks. Why, they’ll spot that from a mile away.” The Whitlock chuckled. “They’re smart when it comes to what concerns them. And maybe that helps us see what true smartness is; it isn’t having read a lot of big books, or knowing long words... it’s being able to spot what’s to our advantage. It’s got to be useful to be real smartness.
If you boys are psychologist types and you’ve been listening to my endless debriefings with Hank, what the hell is Donna’s handle? How do I get next to her? I mean, how is it done? With that kind of sweet, unique, stubborn little chick?
Mr. Tagomi turned to a passer-by, a thin man in rumpled suit. “What is that?” he demanded, pointing. The man grinned. “Awful, ain’t it? That’s the Embarcadero Freeway. A lot of people think it stinks up the view.
Having nothing else to do or think about, he began to work out theoretically the life cycle of the bugs, and, with the aid of the Britannica, try to determine specifically which bugs they were.
His projected face bony and intense, Garth peered out of his booth like an aroused turtle.
Emptiness. He saw no one, only a large chamber with pewlike rows of seats and, at the far end, a casket surrounded by flowers. Off in a small sideroom an old-fashioned reed pump organ and a few wooden folding chairs. The mortuary smelled of dust and flowers, a sweet, stale mixture that repelled him. Think of all the Iowans, the thought, who’ve embraced eternity in this listless room.
But if that’s Olham, then I must be...
I chose God over the material universe.
Maybe there’s a machine in Berkeley that will save me, too. Perhaps my problems can be automated out of existence.
Secretaries, he thought acidly, read that junk, at home alone in bed at night. It stimulates them. Instead of the real thing. Which they’re afraid of. But of course really crave.
Better a live dog than a dead prince.
It would have been rewarding to talk to Dave, he decided. Dave would have approved what I did. But also he would have understood the other part, which I don’t think even Mercer comprehends. For Mercer everything is easy, he thought, because Mercer accepts everything. Nothing is alien to him. But what I’ve done, he thought; that’s become alien to me. In fact everything about me has become unnatural; I’ve become an unnatural self.
And who am I? The wrong person; I can tell you that.
I had a lot of fears that the universe would discover just how different I was from it.
It is therapeutic to meet these people who have intimidated you. And to discover what they are really like. Then the intimidation goes.