Quotes
As an experimental psychologist, I have been trained not to believe anything unless it can be demonstrated in the laboratory on rats or sophomores.
p. 84
Dr. Strangelove's humor is generated by a basic comic principle: People trying to be funny are never as funny as people trying to be serious and failing. The laughs have to seem forced on unwilling characters by the logic of events. A man wearing a funny hat is not funny. But if the man doesn't know he's wearing a funny hat--now you've got something. The characters in Dr. Strangelove do not know their hats are funny.
p. 156
People in the streets, that’s the only thing governments are afraid of. Well, or term limits. Or free elections! Or assassination. Or being laughed at, ah, ha-ha-ha!
p. 746
Anytime you have to threaten people to get them to laugh at your joke you have to consider it less than successful, okay?
p. 748
“It’s the same old story,” he said bitterly. “The resistance begins fighting itself, because that’s the only thing it can beat. Happens every time. You can’t get any movement larger than five people without including at least one fucking idiot.”
p. 315
“It’s kind of scary,” Art remarked to Nadia. “Win a revolution and a bunch of lawyers pop out of the woodwork.”
“Always.”
p. 120
Sax shook his head. It was amazing how floridly elaborate a pseudoscience could get. A compensation technique, perhaps; a desperate attempt to be more like physics.
p. 54
“Yeah yeah. We’d better call a meeting then,” Peter said, looking as annoyed at her as she felt at him.
“Yeah yeah,” Ann said heavily. Meetings. But they had their uses; people could assume they meant something, while the real work went on elsewhere.
p. 10
“Have you told her that?”
“You bet I have, but Hiroko only listens to me when I say things she wants to hear.” He cackled. “Same as with everyone, right?”
p. 34
Science was many things, Nadia thought, including a weapon with which to hit other scientists.
p. 137
There was no pleasure like double-crossing a crook.
p. 395
Rituals should have some unpleasantness, or you don’t appreciate them properly.
p. 291
