“
I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
The main business of humanity is to do a good job of being human beings," said Paul, "not to serve as appendages to machines, institutions, and systems.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Those who live by electronics, die by electronics. Sic semper tyrannis.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
If it weren't for the people, the god-damn people' said Finnerty, 'always getting tangled up in the machinery. If it weren't for them, the world would be an engineer's paradise.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Don't put one foot in your job and the other in your dream, Ed. Go ahead and quit, or resign yourself to this life. It's just too much of a temptation for fate to split you right up the middle before you've made up your mind which way to go.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center. [...] Big, undreamed-of things--the people on the edge see them first.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
You think I'm insane?" said Finnerty. Apparently he wanted more of a reaction than Paul had given him.
"You're still in touch. I guess that's the test."
"Barely — barely."
"A psychiatrist could help. There's a good man in Albany."
Finnerty shook his head. "He'd pull me back into the center, and I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center." He nodded, "Big, undreamed-of things — the people on the edge see them first.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
That man's got a lot of get up and go," said Anita.
"He fills me full of lie down and die," said Paul.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Anybody that competes with slaves becomes a slave," said Harrison thickly, and he left.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Nobody’s so damn well educated that you can’t learn ninety per cent of what he knows in six weeks. The other ten per cent is decoration.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
It isn't knowledge that's making trouble, but the uses it's put to.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Almost nobody’s competent, Paul. It’s enough to make you cry to see how bad most people are at their jobs. If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you’re a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
He would make a good lamp post if he'd weather better and didn't have to eat.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Sordid things, for the most part, are what make human beings, my father included, move. That's what it is to be human, I'm afraid.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Don't you see, Doctor?" said Lasher. "The machines are to practically everbody what the white men were to the Indians. People are finding that, because of the way the machines are changing the world, more and more of their old values don't apply any more. People have no choice but to become second-rate machines themselves, or wards of the machines.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
He watched his brother find peace of mind through psychiatry. That’s why he won’t have anything to do with it.
I don’t follow. Isn’t his brother happy?
Utterly and always happy. And my husband says somebody’s just got to be maladjusted; that somebody’s got to be uncomfortable enough to wonder where people are, where they’re going, and why they’re going there.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
What do you expect?" he said. "For generations they've been built up to worship competition and the market, productivity and economic usefulness, and the envy of their fellow men-and boom! it's all yanked out from under them. They can't participate, can't be useful any more. Their whole culture's been shot to hell.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Not slaves,” said Halyard, chuckling patronizingly. “Citizens, employed by government.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Well, it just don’t seem like nobody feels he’s worth a crap to nobody no more, and it’s a hell of a screwy thing, people gettin’ buggered by things they made theirselves.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Ilium, New York, is divided into three parts.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Everything you think you think because somebody promoted the ideas. Education—nothing but promotion.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Things, gentlemen, are ripe for a phony Messiah, and when he comes, it's sure to be a bloody business.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
The main business of humanity is to do a good job of being human beings,
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
...three thousand dream houses for three thousand families with presumably identical dreams.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Well, you know, in a way I wish I hadn't met you two. It's much more convenient to think of the opposition as a nice homogeneous, dead-wrong mass. Now I've got to muddy my thinking with exceptions.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
I have graded my separate works from A to D. The grades I hand out to myself do not place me in literary history. I am comparing myself with myself. Thus can I give myself an A-plus for Cat’s Cradle, while knowing that there was a writer named William Shakespeare. The report card is chronological, so you can plot my rise and fall on graph paper, if you like:
Player Piano B
The Sirens of Titan A
Mother Night A
Cat’s Cradle A-plus
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater A
Slaughterhouse-Five A-plus
Welcome to the Monkey House B-minus
Happy Birthday, Wanda June D
Breakfast of Champions C
Wampeters, Foma & Grandfalloons C
Slapstick D
Jailbird A
Palm Sunday C
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
“
But there’s two kinds of work, kid, work and hard work. If you want to stand out, have something to sell, you got to do hard work. Pick out something impossible and do it, or be a bum the rest of your life.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
And the charming little cottage he'd taken as a symbol of the good life of a farmer was as irrelevant as a statue of Venus at the gate of a sewage-disposal plant.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
And the lawyers! Of course, I say it’s a pretty good thing what happened to them, because it was a bad thing for them, which couldn’t help to be a good thing for everybody else.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
He said goodbye and good luck, and that some of the greatest prophets were crazy as bedbugs.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
It was a beautifully simple picture these procession leaders had. It was as though a navigator, in order to free his mind of worries, had erased all the reefs from his maps." - Chapter 21
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
But, to Shepherd, life seemed to be laid out like a golf course, with a series of beginnings, hazards, and ends, and with a definite summing up—for comparison with others scores—after each hole.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
He knew with all his heart that the human situation was a frightful botch, but it was such a logical, intelligently arrived-at botch that he couldn't see how history could possibly have led anywhere else.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
You think I'm insane?" said Finnerty. Apparently he wanted more of a reaction than Paul had given him.
"You're still in touch. I Guess that's the test."
"Barely-barely."
"A psychiatrist could help. There's a good man in Albany."
Finnerty shook his head. "He'd pull me back into the center, and I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out there on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center." He nodded, "Big, undreamed-of things--the people on the edge see them first.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
The machines are to practically everybody what the white men were to the Indians. People are finding that, because of the way the machines are changing the world, more and more of their old values don’t apply any more. People have no choice but to become second-rate machines themselves, or wards of the machines.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Without regard for the wishes of men, any machines or techniques or forms of organization that can economically replace men do replace men. Replacement is not necessarily bad, but to do it without regard for the wishes of men is lawlessness.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
I became a so-called science fiction writer when someone decreed that I was a science fiction writer. I did not want to be classified as one, so I wondered in what way I'd offended that I would not get credit for being a serious writer. I decided that it was because I wrote about technology, and most fine American writers know nothing about technology. I got classified as a science fiction writer simply because I wrote about Schenectady, New York. My first book, Player Piano, was about Schenectady. There are huge factories in Schenectady and nothing else. I and my associates were engineers, physicists, chemists, and mathematicians. And when I wrote about the General Electric Company and Schenectady, it seemed a fantasy of the future to critics who had never seen the place.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (A Man Without a Country)
“
It’s just a hell of a time to be alive,
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
It was an archaic expression of friendship by an undisciplined man in an age when most men seemed in mortal fear of being mistaken for pansies for even a split second.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
They had been the rioters, the smashers of machines.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
If Checker Charley was out to make chumps out of men, he could damn well fix his own connections. Paul looks after his own circuits; let Charley do the same. Those who live by electronics, die by electronics. Sic semper tyrannis.” He gathered up the bills from the table. “Good night.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
The Sovereignty of the United States resides in the people, not in the machines, and it's the people's to take back, if they so wish. The machines," said Paul, "have exceeded the personal sovereignty willingly surrendered to them by the American people for the good government. Machines and organization and pursuit of efficiency have robbed the American people of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
To the people who were going to be replaced by machines, maybe. A third one, eh? In a way, I guess the third one’s been going on for some time, if you mean thinking machines. That would be the third revolution, I guess—machines that devaluate human thinking. Some of the big computers like EPICAC do that all right, in specialized fields.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Of course you’re right. It’s just a hell of a time to be alive, is all—just this goddamn messy business of people having to get used to new ideas. And people just don’t, that’s all. I wish this were a hundred years from now, with everybody used to the change.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
But you find out quick enough that old friends are old friends, and nothing more—no wiser, no more help than anyone else.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Anybody that competes with slaves becomes a slave,” said Harrison thickly, and he left.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
He remembered his cry of the night before: We must meet in the middle of the Bridge!
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
“
the First Industrial Revolution devalued muscle work, then the second one devalued routine mental work. I was fascinated.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Those who live by electronics, die by electronics. Sic semper tyrannis.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
It's fresh to you because you're too young to know anything but the way things are now.
Actually, it is kind of incredible that things were ever any other way, isn't it?
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
It was an appalling thought, to be so well-integrated into the machinery of society and history as to be able to move in only one plane, and along one line.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Objectively, know-how and world law were getting their long-awaited chance to turn earth into an altogether pleasant and convenient place in which to sweat out Judgment Day.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
And what does an anthropologist do these days?" sad Paul.
"Same thing a supernumerary minister does--becomes a public charge, a bore, or possibly a rum-dum, or a bureaucrat.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Yesterday’s snow job becomes today’s sermon.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Sordid things, for the most part, are what make human beings, my father included, move. That's what it is to be human, I'm afraid.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
beaters of systems had always been admired by the conventional.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
The main business of humanity is to do a good job of being human beings,” said
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
I’m going to get myself a uniform, so I’ll know what I think and stand for.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
If only it weren’t for the people, the goddamned people,” said Finnerty, “always getting tangled up in the machinery. If it weren’t for them, earth would be an engineer’s paradise.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
When he was with Finnerty he liked to pretend that he shared the man’s fantastic and alternately brilliant or black inner thoughts—almost as though he were discontent with his own relative tranquility.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Sooner or later someone's going to catch the imagination of these people with some new magic. At the bottom of it will be a promise of regaining the feeling of participation, the feeling of being neede on earth - hell, dignity. The police are bright enough to look for people like that, and lock them up under the antisabotage laws. But sooner or later someone's going keep out of thei site long enough to organize a following.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
At this point in history, 1952 A.D., our lives and freedom depend largely upon the skill and imagination and courage of our managers and engineers, and I hope that God will help them to help us all stay alive and free.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Call yourself a doctor, too, do you?” said Mr. Haycox. “I think I can say without fear of contradiction that I earned that degree,” said Doctor Pond coolly. “My thesis was the third longest in any field in the country that year—eight hundred and ninety-six pages, double-spaced, with narrow margins.” “Real-estate salesman,” said Mr. Haycox. He looked back and forth between Paul and Doctor Pond, waiting for them to say something worth his attention. When they’d failed to rally after twenty seconds, he turned to go. “I’m doctor of cowshit, pigshit, and chickenshit,” he said. “When you doctors figure out what you want, you’ll find me out in the barn shoveling my thesis.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
The record," said Finnerty, and he seemed satisfied with the toast. He had got what he wanted from the revolution, Paul supposed--a chance to give a savage blow to a close little society that made no comfortable place for him.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
He hadn't had the satisfaction of telling someone he'd quit, of being believed; but he'd quit. Goodbye. None of this had anything to do with him anymore. Better to be nothing than a blind doorman at the head of civilization's parade.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Anyway, Thoreau was in jail because he wouldn’t pay a tax to support the Mexican War. He didn’t believe in the war. And Emerson came to jail to see him. ‘Henry,’ he said, ‘why are you here?’ And Thoreau said, ‘Ralph, why aren’t you here?
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
This crusading spirit of the managers and engineers, the idea of designing and manufacturing and distributing being sort of a holy war: all that folklore was cooked up by public relations and advertising men hired by managers and engineers to make big business popular in the old days, which it certainly wasn't in the beginning. Now, the engineers and managers believe with all their hearts the glorious things their forebears hired people to say about them. Yesterday's snow job becomes today's sermon.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Lasher smiled sadly. "The great American indvidual," he said. "Thinks he's the embodiment of liberal thought throughout the ages. Stands on his own two feet, by God, alone and motionless. He'd make a good lamp post, if he'd weather better and didn't have to eat.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
You keep giving the managers and engineers a bad time," said Paul. "What about the scientists? It seems to me that -"
"Outside the discussion," said Lasher impatiently. "They simply add to knowledge. It isn't knowledge that's making trouble, but the uses it's put to.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
And another nice thing about war—not that anything about war is nice, I guess—is that while it’s going on and you’re in it, you never worry about doing the right thing. See? Up there, fighting and all, you couldn’t be righter. You could of been a heller at home and made a lot of people unhappy and all, and been a dumb, mean bastard, but you’re king over there—king to everybody, and especially to yourself. This above all, be true to yourself, and you can’t be false to anybody else, and that’s it—in a hole, being shot at and shooting back.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
That’s just it: things haven’t always been that way. It’s new, and it’s people like us who’ve brought it about. Hell, everybody used to have some personal skill or willingness to work or something he could trade for what he wanted. Now that the machines have taken over, it’s quite somebody who has anything to offer. All most people can do is hope to be given something.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
God help us," said Paul. "But, I dunno, this Ghost Shirt thing - it's kind of childish, isn't it? Dressing up like that, and -"
"Childish - like Hitler's Brown Shirts, like Mussolini's Black Shirts. Childish like any uniform," said Lasher. "We don't deny it's childish. At the same time, we admit that we've got to be a little childish, anyway, to get the big following we need.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Please, what are public relations?” said Khashdrahr. “That profession,” said Halyard, quoting by memory from the Manual, “that profession specializing in the cultivation, by applied psychology in mass communication media, of favorable public opinion with regard to controversial issues and institutions, without being offensive to anyone of importance, and with the continued stability of the economy and society its primary goal.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
I will say you've shown up what thin stuff clergymen were peddling, most of them. When I had a congregation before the war, I used to tell them that the life of their spirit in relation to God was the biggest thing in their lives, and that their part in the economy was nothing by comparison. Now, you people have engineered them out of their part in the economy, in the market place, and they're finding out--most of them--that what's left is just about zero. A good bit short of enough, anyway.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Every child older than six knew the fork, and knew what the good guys did here, and what the bad guys did here. The fork was a familiar one in folk tales the world over, and the good guys and the bad guys, whether in chaps, breechclouts, serapes, leopardskins, or banker’s gray pinstripes, all separated here. Bad guys turned informer. Good guys didn’t—no matter when, no matter what. Kroner cleared his throat. “I said, ‘who’s their leader, Paul?’ ” “I am,” said Paul. “And I wish to God I were a better one.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
The four had come to an exciting decision" during the six months of the blockade threatened by the authorities, they would make the ruins a laboratory, a demonstration of how well and happily men could live with virtually no machines. They saw now the common man's wisdom in wrecking practically everything. That was the way to do it, and the hell with moderation!
"All right, so we'll heat our water and cook our food and light and warm our homes with wood fires," said Lasher.
"And walk wherever we're going," said Finnerty.
"And read books instead of watching television," said von Neumann. "The Renaissance comes to upstate New York! We'll rediscover the two greatest wonders of the world, the human mind and hand.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
postwar development of three thousand dream houses for three thousand families with presumably identical dreams.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
It's fresh to you because you're too young to know anything but the way things are now.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Kind of summing up, seems like these days the engineers and managers and the like are everything, and the average man is just nothing any more.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
And Halyard suddenly realized that, just as religion and government had been split into disparate entities centuries before, now, thanks to the machines, politics and government lived side by side, but touched almost nowhere. He stared at President Jonathan Lynn and imagined with horror what the country must have been like when, as today, any damn fool little American boy might grow up to be President, but when the President had had to actually run the country!
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Better to be nothing than a blind doorman at the head of civilization’s parade. And
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Then you’ll do it brilliantly, darling. You’ll get to Pittsburgh yet.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
job left vacant two weeks ago by death—the managership of the Pittsburgh Works. “How gay can a party get?
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Is Doctor Proteus on?” said Kroner’s secretary. “Doctor Kroner is in.” “Just a moment,” said Katharine. “Doctor Proteus, Doctor Kroner is in and will speak to you.” “All right, I’m on.” “Doctor Proteus is on the line,” said Katharine. “Doctor Kroner, Doctor Proteus is on the line.” “Tell him to go ahead,” said Kroner. “Tell Doctor Proteus to go ahead,” said Kroner’s secretary. “Doctor Proteus, please go ahead,” said Katharine. “This is Paul Proteus, Doctor Kroner. I’m returning your call.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
A huge fireplace and Dutch oven of fieldstone filled one wall. Over them hung a long muzzle-loading rifle, powder horn, and bullet pouch. On the mantel were candle molds, a coffee mill, an iron and trivet, and a rusty kettle. An iron cauldron, big enough to boil a missionary in, swung at the end of a long arm in the fireplace, and below it, like so many black offspring, were a cluster of small pots. A wooden butter churn held the door open, and clusters of Indian corn hung from the molding at aesthetic intervals. A colonial scythe stood in one corner, and two Boston rockers on a hooked rug faced the cold fireplace, where the unwatched pot never boiled. Paul
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
She quieted, and turned away under his stare. Inadvertently, he’d gained the upper hand. He had somehow communicated the thought that had bobbed up in his thoughts unexpectedly: that her strength and poise were no more than a mirror image of his own importance, an image of the power and self-satisfaction the manager of the Ilium Works could have, if he wanted it. In a fleeting second she became a helpless, bluffing little girl in his thoughts, and he was able to feel real tenderness toward her.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Halyard yawned, and was annoyed to think that Lynn, who had just read “order out of chaos” as “order out of koze,” made three times as much money as he did. Lynn, or, as Halyard preferred to think of him, Planck, hadn’t even finished high school, and Halyard had known smarter Irish setters. Yet, here the son-of-a-bitch was, elected to more than a hundred thousand bucks a year!
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
There’s something about war that brings out greatness. I
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
be true to yourself, and you can’t be false to anybody else, and
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
Sooner or later someone’s going to catch the imagination of these people with some new magic. At the bottom of it will be a promise of regaining the feeling of participation, the feeling of being needed on earth—hell, dignity. The police are bright enough to look for people like that, and lock them up under the antisabotage laws. But sooner or later someone’s going to keep out of their sight long enough to organize a following.” Paul
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
go shoot a bear. Concentrating hard on the illusion, Paul was able to muster a feeling of positive gratitude for Anita’s presence, to thank God for a woman at his side to help with the petrifying amount of work involved in merely surviving.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
The television cameras dollied and panned about him like curious, friendly dinosaurs, sniffing and peering.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
No trouble. There really isn’t a heck of a lot to the job.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
For once, after the great bloodbath of the war, the world really was cleared of unnatural terrors—mass starvation, mass imprisonment, mass torture, mass murder. Objectively, know-how and world law were getting their long-awaited chance to turn earth into an altogether pleasant and convenient place in which to sweat out Judgment Day. Paul
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
The pride in strength and important mystery showed no less in the eyes of the sweepers than in those of the machinists and inspectors, and in those of the foreman, who alone was without a lunchbox. A
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
And Halyard suddenly realized that, just as religion and government had been split into disparate entities centuries before, now, thanks to the machines, politics and government lived side by side, but touched almost nowhere.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
A psychiatrist could help. There’s a good man in Albany.” Finnerty shook his head. “He’d pull me back into the center, and I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.” He nodded. “Big, undreamed-of things—the people on the edge see them first.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)
“
In short, Paul missed what made his father aggressive and great: the capacity to really give a damn.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Player Piano)