To inspire himself, he lit up a marijuana cigarette, excellent Land-O-Smiles brand.
Don’t you feel it?” he kidded her. “The historicity?
She’ll probably want to, once I show her how; as near as I can make out, most women, even young ones like her, like to cook: it’s an instinct.
Dr. Leon Stone turned out to be one of the most important people in Horselover Fat’s life. To get to Stone, Fat had to nearly kill himself physically, matching his mental death. Is this what they mean about God’s mysterious ways? How else could Fat have linked up with Leon Stone? Only some dismal act of the order of a suicide attempt, a truly lethal attempt, would have achieved it; Fat had to die, or nearly die, to be cured. Or nearly cured.
There are people among us who are biologically human but who are androids in the metaphoric sense.
As the spring rains fall, soaking in them, on the roof, is a child’s rag ball.
A Gresham’s Law: the fakes would undermine the value of the real.
Nobody should lead mankind. It should lead itself.
You know that recent Supreme Court ruling where a husband can legally murder his wife if he can prove she wouldn’t under any circumstances give him a divorce?
So although I heard the emptiness intellectually, I didn’t feel it. My first reaction consisted of being grateful that we could afford a Penfield mood organ. But then I realized how unhealthy it was, sensing the absence of life, not just in this building but everywhere, and not reacting – do you see? I guess you don’t. But that used to be considered a sign of mental illness; they called it ’absence of appropriate affect.
There’s something in the Bible about falling sparrows,’ Kevin said. ‘About his eye being on them. That’s what’s wrong with God: he only has one eye.
Her smile increased. She had perfect white regular teeth; Irish, Juliana decided. Only Irish blood could give that jawline such femininity.
But the longing within him had grown even greater, the overpowering need to be alone. Locked in an empty room, entirely unwitnessed, silent and supine. Stretched out, not needing to speak, not needing to move. Not required to cope with anyone or any problem. And no one will even know where I am, he told himself. That seemed, unaccountably, very important; he wanted to be unknown and invisible, to live unseen.
But in the end I decided against it. The hell with the newspapers. Nobody reads the letters to the editor column except more nuts. The whole world is full of nuts. It’s enough to get you down.
After he saw God he felt really good, for around a year. And then he felt really bad. Worse than he ever had before in his life. Because one day it came over him, he began to realize, that he was never going to see God again; he was going to live out his whole remaining life, decades, maybe fifty years, and see nothing but what he had always seen. What we see. He was worse off than if he hadn’t seen God.
If you or I ever really accepted the moral responsibility for what we’ve done in our lifetime – we’d drop dead or go mad. Living creatures weren’t made to understand what they do.
Jump in the urinal and stand on your head. I’m the one that’s alive. You’re all dead.
This is an interval, ein Augenblick. The cosmic process is hurrying on, crushing life back into the granite and methane; the wheel turns for all life. It is all temporary. And.
Somebody took my actual physical presence away and substituted this.
You admit, then, that your world is not real? That it is a forgery?” Zina hesitated. “It branched off at crucial points, due to our interference with the past. Call it magic if you want or call it technology;.