# Quote — Robert Shea, The Illuminatus! Trilogy

> "A is not A," Hagbard explained with that tiresome patience of his, "Once you accept A is A, you're hooked. Literally hooked, addicted to the System."
>
> I caught the references to Aristotle, the old man of the tribe with his unfortunate epistemological paresis, and also to that feisty lady I always imagine is really lost Anastasia, but I still didn't grok. "What do you mean?" I asked, grabbing a wet handkerchief as some of the teargas started to drift to our end of the park.
>
> "Chairman Mao didn't say half of it," Hagbard replied holding a handkerchief to his own face. His words came through muffled; "It isn't only political power that grows out of the barrel of a gun. So does the whole definition of reality. A set. And the action that has to happen on that particular set and on none other."
>
> "Don't be so bloody patronizing," I objected, looking around a corner in time and realizing that night I would be Maced. "That's just Marx: the ideology of the ruling class becomes the ideology of the whole society."
>
> "Not the ideology. The Reality." He lowered his handkerchief. "This was a public park until they changed the definition. Now, the guns have changed the Reality. It isn't a public park. There's more than one kind of magic."
>
> "Just like Enclosure Acts," I said hollowly. "One day the land belongs to the people. The next day it belongs to the landlords."
>
> "And like the Narcotic Acts," he added. "A hundred thousands harmless junkies became criminals overnight, by Act of Congress, in 1927. Ten years later, in '37, all the pot-heads in the country became criminals overnight, by Act of Congress. And they were criminals, when the papers were signed. The guns prove it. Walk away from those guns, waving a joint, and refuse to halt when they tell you. Their Imagination will become your Reality in a second."
>
> And I had my answer to Dad, finally, just as a cop jumped out of the darkness screaming something about freaking motherfucking fag commies and Maced me, as was certain to happen (I knew it as I crumbled in pain) on that set.

- Author: [Robert Shea](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-shea.md)
- Book: [The Illuminatus! Trilogy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-shea/the-illuminatus-trilogy.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Illuminatus!_Trilogy#Quotes) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-shea/the-illuminatus-trilogy/a-is-not

## More from this book

> "You look blank, Joe," said Malaclypse. "Has no one explained to you that the human race is divided into two distinct genotypes - neophobes, who reject new ideas and accept only what they have known all their lives, and neophiles, who love new things, change, invention, innovation? For the first four million years of man's history, all humans were neophobes, which is why civilization did not develop. Animals are all neophobes. Only mutation can change them. Instinct is simply the natural behavior of a neophobe. The neophile mutation appeared about a hundred thousand years ago, and speeded up thirty thousand years ago. However, there has never been more than a handful of neophiles anywhere on the planet. The Illuminati themselves sprang from one of the oldest neophile-neophobe conflicts on record."

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-shea/the-illuminatus-trilogy/you-look-blank.md)

> Only the madman is ever sure.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-shea/the-illuminatus-trilogy/only-the-madman.md)

> THINK FOR YOURSELF, SCHMUCK!

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robert-shea/the-illuminatus-trilogy/think-for-yourself.md)