White Noise Quotes
"The station wagons arrived at noon, a long shining line that coursed through the west campus."
"Their summer has been bloated with criminal pleasures, as always."
"The roofs of the station wagons were loaded down with carefully secured suitcases full of light and heavy clothing."
"I am chairman of the department of Hitler studies at the College-on-the-Hill."
"Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies."
"All plots tend to move deathward. This is the nature of plots."
"We are here to maintain an image, not capture one."
"This is not Tibet. Even Tibet is not Tibet anymore."
"What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation."
"Television is a primal force in the American home."
"It’s all this activity in the brain and you don’t know what’s you as a person and what’s some neuron that just happens to fire."
"The system had blessed my life. I felt its support and approval."
"The power of numbers is never more evident than when we use them to speculate on the time of our dying."
"The family is the cradle of the world’s misinformation."
"May the days be aimless. Let the seasons drift. Do not advance the action according to a plan."
"The power of the dead is that we think they see us all the time."
"It is not possible to see too much in them, to overindulge your casual gift for the study of character."
"These things happen to poor people who live in exposed areas."
"A large air mass is moving down from Canada."
"It’s because of the kids we keep saying nothing’s going to happen. We don’t want to scare them."
"The important thing is location. It’s there, we’re here."
"Knowledge changes every day. People like to have their beliefs reinforced."
"The world is more complicated for adults than it is for children."
"I’m the closest they could find, that’s all."
"I drew courage from her breasts, her warm mouth, her browsing hands."
"It seemed more urgent than ever that I learn the language."
"For years they told us these low doses weren’t dangerous."
"Isn’t the definition of a serious event based on the fact that it’s not an everyday occurrence?"
"Your radio, your TV, your microwave oven, your power lines just outside the door, your radar speed-trap on the highway."
"It’s the things right around you in your own house that’ll get you sooner or later."
"The important thing is movement. Get those people out of the swath."
"We want to reverse the flow of experience, of worldliness and its responsibilities."
"Isn’t death the boundary we need? Doesn’t it give a precious texture to life, a sense of definition?"
"It’s what we invented to conceal the terrible secret of our decaying bodies. But it’s also life, isn’t it?"
"Belief in a second birth, a second life, is practically universal. This must mean something."
"Think of the great poetry, the music and dance and ritual that spring forth from our aspiring to a life beyond death."
"Seriously, you can find a great deal of long-range solace in the idea of an afterlife."
"Fear is unnatural. Lightning and thunder are unnatural. Pain, death, reality, these are all unnatural."
"How powerful did the Germans prove to be? They lost the war, after all."
"Helpless and fearful people are drawn to magical figures, mythic figures, epic men who intimidate and darkly loom."
"You wanted to be helped and sheltered. The overwhelming horror would leave no room for your own death."
"It’s only your fear that makes you act this way."
"We create beautiful and lasting things, build vast civilizations."
"Gorgeous evasions," he said. "Great escapes."
"The purpose of a room derives from the special nature of a room. A room is inside."
"The pet under stress may need a prescription diet."
"We are your lunatics. We surrender our lives to make your nonbelief possible."
"The nonbelievers need the believers. They are desperate to have someone believe."
"Hell is when no one believes. There must always be believers. Fools, idiots, those who hear voices, those who speak in tongues."
"Our pretense is a dedication. Someone must appear to believe."
"No one knows why the sea birds come to San Miguel."
"The sky takes on content, feeling, an exalted narrative life."
"There is anticipation in the air but it is not the expectant midsummer hum of a shirtsleeve crowd, a sandlot game."