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1 " If you want to make a million you don't have to understand money, what you have to understand is people's fears about money "
― William Gaddis , JR
2 " -Money? in a voice that rustled. "
3 " Has it ever occurred to any of you that all this is simply one grand misunderstanding? Since you're not here to learn anything, but to be taught so you can pass these tests, knowledge has to be organized so it can be taught, and it has to be reduced to information so it can be organized do you follow that? In other words this leads you to assume that organization is an inherent property of the knowledge itself, and that disorder and chaos are simply irrelevant forces that threaten it from the outside. In fact it's exactly the opposite. Order is simply a thin, perilous condition we try to impose on the basic reality of chaos... "
4 " -Put on the lights there, now. Before we go any further here, has it ever occurred to any of you that all this is simply one grand misunderstanding? Since you're not here to learn anything, but to be taught so you can pass these tests, knowledge has to be organized so it can be taught, and it has to be reduced to information so it can be organized do you follow that? In other words this leads you to assume that organization is an inherent property of knowledge itself, and that disorder and chaos are simply irrelevant forces that threaten it from outside. In fact it's exactly the opposite. Order is simply a thin, perilous condition we try to impose on the basic reality of chaos... "
5 " I mean why should somebody go steal and break the law to get all they can when there's always some law where you can be legal and get it all anyway! "
6 " —Problem what happened he always woke up the same person went to bed the night before only way he knew it these God damned words going through his head, go to bed knew he’d wake up the same God damned person finally couldn’t take it anymore, same God damned words waiting for him only thing to do get rid of the God damned container for the thing contained, God damned words come around next morning God damned container smashed on the sidewalk no place for them to . . . "
7 " Get a black suit and just freeload, problem it's too God damned late now even to be any of the things I never wanted to be. "
8 " The function of this school is custodial. It’s here to keep these kids off the streets until the girls are big enough to get pregnant and the boys are old enough to go out and hold up a gas station. "
9 " ... and she turned for the stairs as the sound of rain came, finally, scattered across the roof, a fall that now gave substance to the stilled beams of headlamps in the drive where those of flashlights rose and fell to the cadenced steps come back and round the range of yew and up the terrace and through the door to fall on broken glass and flee across the inkstained carpet, darting, climbing, caught fixed in niches, they scaled the walls and leaped the beams to skirt the hayloft. "
10 " You see I still have confidence in you sir, or should I say the artist who dwells within you, the artist who disdains such mundane details as selecting a fresh shirt in the morning, who steps forth into the workday world the rest of us inhabit indifferent to the glances he draws because his shoes fail to match, why? Because his mind has been elsewhere, his inner ear tuned to the sonorous tones of horn and kettledrum, tones it is his sacred duty to let us hear with him. "
11 " has it ever occurred to any of you that all this is simply one grand misunderstanding? Since you’re not here to learn anything, but to be taught so you can pass these tests, knowledge has to be organized so it can be taught, and it has to be reduced to information so it can be organized do you follow that? In other words this leads you to assume that organization is an inherent property of the knowledge itself, and that disorder and chaos are simply irrelevant forces that threaten it from outside. In fact it’s exactly the opposite. Order is simply a thin, perilous condition we try to impose on the basic reality of chaos . . "
12 " success and like free enterprise and all "
13 " What do you mean do I go around with narcotics signing petitions painting slop writing books full of dirty words with a beard? "
14 " -And there's this twelve thousand dollars item for books.-That supposed to be twelve hundred, the twelve thousand is for paper.towels. Besides there is already that bequest for the library.-Did it say books in so many words? No. It's just a bequest for the library.-Use it for pegboard. You need pegboard in a library. Books you don't know what you're getting into. "
15 " You just can’t understand anything you can’t get your hands on, anything you can’t feel or see or, or count... "
16 " In simple straightforward terms Dan, you might say that he structured the material in terms of the ongoing situation to tangibilitate the utilization potential of this one to one instructional medium in such a meaningful learning experience that thesekids won’t forget it for a hell of a long time, how's that Whiteback. "
17 " I, I should have just done what you wanted me to in the first place "
18 " the one station that played music great music left in the whole loud cheap pounding stupidity of radio you find it and make it cheap and stupid like all the rest of you could, if there was one flower out here in this mud and weeds and broken toilet seats you’d find it and step on it, the minute you...- okay wait look is it my fault if...- The minute you get your hands on something the power to keep something like that going you couldn’t do it you couldn’t even leave it alone for a few people still looking for something beautiful, people who’d rather hear a symphony than eat who can still, who hear a magnificent soprano voice singing ach nein when you hear this here lady singing up mine you can’t get up to their level so you drag them down to yours if there’s any way to ruin something, to degrade it to cheapen it... "
19 " No you won’t understand will you! that your own selfish suffering’s easier than facing suffering you’ve caused "
20 " A bell sounded silencing motion where anything moved, hurling motionlessness into activity, books gathered at a sweep, papers to the floor, a glove through the air. "