Quotes from Feed

M.T. Anderson ·  308 pages

Rating: (47.5K votes)


“We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“We Americans are interested only in the consumption of our products. We have no interest in how they are produced, or what happens to them once we discard them, once we throw them away.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“The natural world is so adaptable...So adaptable you wonder what's natural.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“There's an ancient saying in Japan, that life is like walking from one side of infinite darkness to another, on a bridge of dreams. They say that we're all crossing the bridge of dreams together. That there's nothing more than that. Just us, on the bridge of dreams.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“…It’s like a spiral: They keep making everything more basic so it will appeal to everyone. And gradually, everyone gets used to everything being basic, so we get less and less varied as people, more simple. So the corps make everything even simpler. And it goes on and on.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed



“Whispering makes a narrow place narrower.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“I am messaging you to say that I love you, and that you're completely wrong about me thinking you're stupid. I always thought you could teach me things. I was always waiting. You're not like the others. You say things that no one expects you to. You think you're stupid. You want to be stupid. But you're someone people could learn from.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


We enter a time of calamity. Blood on the tarmac. Fingers in the juicer. Towers of air frozen in the lunar wastes. Models dead on the runways, with their legs facing backward. Children with smiles that can’t be undone. Chicken shall rot in the aisles. See the pillars fall.
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“It’s the end. It’s the end of the civilization. We’re going down.

No, it’s sure not too attractive. Lenticels.

I just hope my kids don’t live to see the last days. The things burning and people living in cellars.
Violet.
The only thing worse than the thought it may all come tumbling down is the thought that we may go on like this forever.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“Then it was this big thing. She was like, 'I never want to see you again', and I was like, 'Fine. Okay? Fine. Then get some special goggles.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed



“You made her apologize for sickness. For her courage. You made her feel sorry for dying.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“I wanted to say something to cheer her up. I had a feeling that cheering her up might be a lot of work. I was thinking of how sometimes, trying to say the right thing to people, it’s like some kind of brain surgery, and you have to tweak exactly the right part of the lobe. Except with talking, it’s more like brain surgery with old, rusted skewers and things, maybe like those things you use to eat lobster, but brown. And you have to get exactly the right place, and you’re touching around in the brain but the patient, she keeps jumping and saying, “Ow.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“I don't know when they first had feeds. Like maybe, fifty or a hundred years ago. Before that, they had to use their hands and their eyes. Computers were all outside the body. They carried them around outside of them, in their hands, like if you carried your lungs in a briefcase and opened it to breathe.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“You need the noise of your friends in space.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


…what the President meant in the intercepted chat. This was, uh, nothing but a routine translation problem. It has to be understood, that…It has to be understood that when the President referred to the Prime Minister of the Global Alliance as a ‘big sh*thead,’ what he was trying to convey was, uh—this is an American idiom used to praise people, by referring to the sheer fertilizing power of their thoughts. The President meant to say that the Prime Minister’s head was fertile, just full of these nutrients where ideas can grow. It really was a compliment…
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed



“I miss that time. The cities back then, just after the forests died, were full of wonders, and you'd stumble on them--these princes of the air on common rooftops--the rivers that burst through the city streets so they ran like canals--the rabbits in parking garages--the deer foaling, nestled in Dumpsters like a Nativity.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“We are the nation of dreams. We are seers. We are wizards. We speak in visions. Our letters are like flocks of doves, released from under our hats. We have only to stretch out our hand and desire, and what we wish for settles like a kerchief in our palm. We are a race of sorcerers, enchanters. We are Atlantis. We are the wizard-isle of Mu.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“I can read. A little. I kind of protested it in School(TM). On the grounds that the silent 'E' is stupid.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“I looked at her, and she was smiling like she was broken.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“My idea of life, it's what happens when they're rolling the credits.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed



“Maybe these are our salad days."
"Huh?"
"You know. Happy."
"What's happy about a salad?"
She shrugged. "Ranch," she said.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“it's like a squid in love with the sky.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“I looked over at her face. I could see the light from my heartbeat on her tears.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“I don’t know. D’you think? He’s pretty wide in the chest.”

The girl looked at me, and I was frozen. So I said, “Yeah. I work out.”
Violet asked me, “What are you? What’s your cup size?”
I shrugged and played along. “Like, nine and a half?” I guessed. “That’s my shoe size.”
Violet said, “I think he’d like something slinky, kind of silky.”
I said, “As long as you can stop me from rubbing myself up against a wall the whole time.”
“Okay,” said Violet, holding her hands up like she was annoyed. “Okay, the chemise last week was a mistake.

― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“So one time I said to her that she should stop reading it, because it was just depressing, so she was like, But I want to know what’s going on, so I was like, Then you should do something about it. It’s a free country. You should do something. She was like, Nothing’s ever going to happen in a two-party system. She was like, da da da, nothing’s ever going to change, both parties are in the pocket of big business, da da da, all that? So I was like, You got to believe in the people, it’s a democracy, we can change things.
She was like, It’s not a democracy.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed



“Keep thinking. You can hear our brains rattling around inside us, like the littler Russian dolls.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“I cried, sitting by her bed, and I told her the story of us. “It’s about the feed,” I said. “It’s about this meg normal guy, who doesn’t think about anything until one wacky day, when he meets a dissident with a heart of gold.” I said, “Set against the backdrop of America in its final days, it’s the high-spirited story of their love together, it’s laugh-out-loud funny, really heartwarming, and a visual feast.” I picked up her hand and held it to my lips. I whispered to her fingers. “Together, the two crazy kids grow, have madcap escapades, and learn an important lesson about love. They learn to resist the feed. Rated PG-13. For language,” I whispered, “and mild sexual situations.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“Image of a girl holding a blaster to a twin’s temple. “Remember, bi***. You can’t spell ‘danger’ without DNA.”


Blam.

― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“I could see my face, crying, in her blank eye.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed


“The worst stage was when one could tell she was still awake and almost alert, but she knew that nothing worked. Imprisoned. She was imprisoned. In a statue like the Sphinx. Looking out from the eyes. Her own mind, at that point, was as small and bewildered as a little fly. Behind great battlements.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed



About the author

M.T. Anderson
Born place: in Stow, Massachusetts, The United States
Born date November 4, 1968
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