Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk QUOTES

1 " You can deny him, he thought, watching his father across the table. You can hate him, love him, pity him, never speak to or look at him in the eye again, never deign even to be in his crabbed and bitter presence, but you're still stuck with the son of a bitch. One way or another he'll always be your daddy, not even all-powerful death was going to change that. "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

2 " Why?' He kept asking in his sweetly belling voice, its tone as pure as marbles swirled around a crystal pail. Why him wun up the tree? Why him nest up theah? Why him gadder nuts? Why? Why? Why? And Billy answering every question to the best of his ability, as if anything less would disrespect the deep and maybe even divine force that drove his little nephew toward universal knowledge. "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

3 " As if sorrow is the true reality? Without ever putting his mind to it, he's come to believe that loss is the standard trajectory. "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

4 " ...he wonders by what process virtually any discussion about the war seems to profane these ultimate matters of life and death. As if to talk of such things properly we need a mode of speech near the equal of prayer, otherwise just shut, shut your yap and sit on it, silence being truer to the experience than the star-spangled spasm, the bittersweet sob, the redeeming hug, or whatever this fucking closure is that everybody's always talking about. They want it to be easy and it's just not going to be. "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

5 " It has been a frustrating game thus far and [the natives] blow off steam by spending money. Happily there is retail at every turn so the crow doesn’t lack for buying opportunities, and it’s the same everywhere Bravo has been, the airports, the hotels, the arenas and convention centers, in the downtowns and the suburbs alike, retail dominates the land. Somewhere along the way America became a giant mall with a country attached. "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

6 " America loves to pray, God knows. America prays and prays and prays, it is the land of unchained prayer, and all this ceremonial praying is hard on Billy. "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

7 " Americans are children who must go somewhere else to grow up, and sometimes die. "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

8 " Billy tries to imagine the vast systems that support these athletes. They are among the best-cared for creatures in the history of the planet, beneficiaries of the best nutrition, the latest technologies, the finest medical care, they live at the very pinnacle of American innovation and abundance, which inspires an extraordinary thought - send them to fight the war! Send them just as they are this moment, well rested, suited up, psyched for brutal combat, send the entire NFL! Attack with all our bears and raiders, our ferocious redskins, our jets, eagles, falcons, chiefs, patriots, cowboys - how could a bunch of skinny hajjis in man-skits and sandals stand a chance against these all-Americans? Resistance is futile, oh Arab foes. Surrender now and save yourself a world of hurt, for our mighty football players cannot be stopped, they are so huge, so strong, so fearsomely ripped that mere bombs and bullets bounce off their bones of steel. Submit, lest our awesome NFL show you straight to the flaming gates of hell! "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

9 " [Norm said,] 'To all those who argue this war is a mistake, I'd like to point out that we've removed from power one of history's most ruthless and belligerent tyrants. A man who cold-bloodedly murdered thousands of his own people. Who built palaces for his personal pleasure while schools decayed and his country's health care system collapsed. Who maintained one of the world's most expensive armies while he allowed his nation's infrastructure to crumble. Who channeled resources to his cronies and political allies, allowing them to siphon off much of the country's wealth for their own personal gain. "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

10 " There was no such thing as perfection in this world, only moments of such extreme transparency that you forgot yourself, a holy mercy if there ever was one. "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

11 " At the door to the locker room Dime asks [Ennis] to autograph his ball. Ennis rears back. He's chuckling but his eyes are wary.

'Why you want that? I'm just an old equipment hand, nobody cares about my autograph.'

'As far as I'm concerned you run the team,' Dime answers, so Ennis laughs and takes the Sharpie and signs his name to Dime's ball, and this will be the only autograph that Dime collects today. "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

12 " It was the sixties, exactly, all we wanted to do was to smoke a lot of dope and ball a lot of chicks. Vietnam, excuse me? Why would I wanna go get my ass shot off in some stinking rice paddy just so Nixon can have his four more years? Screw that, and I wasn't the only one who felt that way. All the big warmongers these days who took a pass on Vietnam, look, I'd be the last person on earth to start casting blame. Bush, Cheney, Rove, all those guys, they just did what everybody else was doing and I was right there with 'em, chicken as anybody. My problem now is how tough and gung-ho they are, all that bring it on crap, I mean, Jesus, show a little humility, people. They ought to be just as careful of your young lives as they were with their own. "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

13 " He decides he wants both more or less. He’d like to hang with Beyonce in a nice way, get to know her by doing small pleasant things together like playing board games and going out for ice cream, or how about this, a three-week trial run in some tropical paradise where they can hang together in that nice way and possibly fall in love, and meanwhile fuck each other’s brains out in their spare time. He wants both, he wants the entire body-soul connect because anything less is just demeaning. "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

14 " I like to kill my enemies and listen to the lamentations of their women "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

15 " If you could figure out how to live with family then you'd gone a long way toward finding your peace. "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

16 " You'd think family would be the one sure thing in life, the gimme? Points you got just for being born? So much thick, meaty stuff bound you to these people, so many interlocking spirals of history, genetics, common cause, and struggle that it should be the most basic of all drives, that you would strive to protect and love one another, yet this bond that should be the big no-brainer was in fact the hardest thing. "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

17 " Not that she means anything by it, he knows. This is simply her lifelong habit of moderation at work, her need to tamp everything down to the routine, the modest, the tepid everyday. He understands the whole concept of boundaries, but there’s a point where this mania for normalizing turns toxic. "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

18 " Gli americani sono bambini che devono andare da qualche altra parte a crescere, e a volte a morire. "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

19 " La paura della morte è la favela dell'animo umano, esserne liberi è l'equivalente psicologico dell'ereditare cento milioni di dollari. Ecco cosa invidia davvero a questa gente, il lusso di considerare il terrorismo un argomento di conversazione, e in questo preciso momento si sente così sfigato che potrebbe scoppiare a piangere. "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

20 " Alla gente tutta quella falsità non fa né caldo né freddo, forse perché l'ininterrotta propaganda commerciale della vita americana le ha instillato soglie eccezionalmente alte di tolleranza per le simulazioni, le gonfiature, le distorsioni, le stronzate e le vere e proprie menzogne, in altre parole per la pubblicità in ogni sua forma. "

― Ben Fountain , Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk