Mockingbird QUOTES

2 " It changed the life of mankind more radically than the printing press. It created suburbs and a hundred other dependencies—sexual and economic and narcotic—upon the automobile. And the automobile paved the way for more profound – more inward- inner dependencies upon Television and then robots, and finally the ultimate and predictable conclusion of it all: the perfection of the chemistry of the mind…It all began, I suppose, with learning to build fires—to warm the cave and keep the predators out. And it ended with time-release Valium. "

― Walter Tevis , Mockingbird

4 " Reading is the subtle and thorough sharing of the ideas and feelings by underhanded means. It is a gross invasion of Privacy and a direct violation of the Constitutions of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Age. The Teaching of Reading is equally a crime against Privacy and Personhood. One to five years on each count. "

― Walter Tevis , Mockingbird

6 " I am human. I talk and I listen and I read. "

― Walter Tevis , Mockingbird

8 " New York is nearly a grave. The Empire State Building is its gravestone. "

― Walter Tevis , Mockingbird

10 " I have never in my life seemed to see and hear and think so clearly. Can it be because I have not used drugs this day? Or is it this act of writing? The two are so new and have come together so closely that I cannot be sure of which it is. It is extremely strange to feel like this. There is exhilaration to it, but the sense of risk is almost terrifying. "

― Walter Tevis , Mockingbird

12 " But most of all, it seems to me now, has been the courage to know and to sense my feelings that has come, slowly, from the emotionally charged silent films at the old library at first and then later from the poems and novels and histories and biographies and how-to-do-it books that I have read. All of those books—even the dull and nearly incomprehensible ones—have made me understand more clearly what it means to be a human being. And I have learned from the sense of awe I at times develop when I feel in touch with the mind of another, long-dead person and know that I am not alone on this earth. "

― Walter Tevis , Mockingbird

14 " The face on the box was, Paul had told me, the face of Jesus Christ. It was used to sell a lot of things. ‘Vestigial reverence’ was the term Paul read somewhere that was supposed to be the idea, probably a hundred or more blues ago, when such things were all planned out. "

― Walter Tevis , Mockingbird

16 " All of those books—even the dull and nearly incomprehensible ones—have made me understand more clearly what it means to be a human being. And I have learned from the sense of awe I at times develop when I feel in touch with the mind of another, long-dead person and know that I am not alone on this earth. There have been others who have felt as I feel and who have, at times, been able to say the unsayable. 'Only the mockingbird sings at the edge of the woods. I am the way and the truth and the life. He that believeth in me, though he die, yet shall he live.' My life is light, waiting for the death wind. Like a feather on the back of my hand. "

― Walter Tevis , Mockingbird

18 " Holy Bible begins: ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.’ It does not give the century of the ‘beginning,’ nor is it clear who ‘God’ is, or was. I am not certain whether Holy Bible is a book of history or maintenance or poetry. It names many strange people who do not seem real. "

― Walter Tevis , Mockingbird

20 " Reading is too intimate," Spofforth said. "It will put you too close to the feelings and ideas of others. It will disturb and confuse you. "

― Walter Tevis , Mockingbird