“I was convinced that the proverb about money not buying happiness was written by a rich guy who didn't want you to feel bad because you didn't have any.”
“I didn't want fine. I wanted to be somebody. Somebody with plenty of money.”
“Sorry, Jack. I really needed to hit rock bottom before I could dust myself off.”
“He looked so boring I didn't dare get too close to him for fear he'd snatch part of my brain”
“They were in charge of the privilege of staying and the joy of firing.”
“Those rich guys were right. Money can't buy happiness, because happiness is everywhere. It's free, like air.”
“I'm not sure who faked their orgasm first, but thankfully it was over rather quickly.”
“After a great loss, after a difficult victory, after suffering extreme trauma, she wished she could have some time to hibernate. Not two days. Two years. Some serious time to pull herself together. Why did life always have to roll relentlessly forward? Why was every victory or defeat followed by new works and new problems?”
“Love is a disease no one wants to get rid of. Those who catch it never try to get better, and those who suffer do not wish to be cured.”
“I did not want to think so much about her. I wanted to take her as an unexpected, delightful gift, that had come and would go again — nothing more. I meant not to give room to the thought that it could ever be more. I knew too well that all love has the desire for eternity and that therein lies its eternal torment. Nothing lasts. Nothing.”
“A person has all sorts of lags built into him, Kesey is saying. One, the most basic, is the sensory lag, the lag between the time your senses receive something and you are able to react. One-thirtieth of a second is the time it takes, if you are the most alert person alive, and most people are a lot slower than that. Now Cassady is right up against that 1/30th of a second barrier. He is going as fast as a human can go, but even he can't overcome it. He is a living example of how close you can come, but it can't be done. You can't go any faster than that. You can't through sheer speed overcome the lag. We are all of us doomed to spend the rest of our lives watching a movie of our lives - we are always acting on what has just finished happening. It happened at least 1/30th of a second ago. We think we are in the present, but we aren't. The present we know is only a movie of the past, and we will really never be able to control the present through ordinary means. That lag has to be overcome some other way, through some kind of total breakthrough.”
“A persistent case of the bingos was enough to wash a man out of night carrier landings. That did not mean you were finished as a Navy pilot. It merely meant that you were finished so far as carrier ops were concerned, which meant that you were finished so far as combat was concerned, which meant you were no longer in the competition, no longer ascending the pyramid, no longer qualified for the company of those with the right stuff.”
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