Breakfast of champions

it was possible for a human being to believe anything, and to behave passionately in keeping with that belief—any belief

Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind.

Ideas on Earth were badges of

friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with

friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with

enemies, in order to express enmity.

Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies, in order to express enmity.

Your parents were fighting machines and self-pitying machines,” said the book. “Your mother was programmed to bawl out your father for being a defective moneymaking machine, and your father was programmed to bawl her out for being a defective housekeeping machine. They were programmed to bawl each other out for being defective loving machines.
“Then your father was programmed to stomp out of the house and slam the door. This automatically turned your mother into a weeping machine. And your father would go down to a tavern where he would get drunk with some other drinking machines. Then all the drinking machines would go to a whorehouse and rent fucking machines. And then your father would drag himself home to become an apologizing machine. And your mother would become a very slow forgiving machine.

And here, according to Trout, was the reason human beings could not reject ideas because they were bad: “Ideas on Earth were badges of friendship or enmity. Their content did not matter. Friends agreed with friends, in order to express friendliness. Enemies disagreed with enemies, in order to express enmity

Actually, women’s underpants had been drastically devalued by the time of the historic meeting between Dwayne Hoover and Trout. The price of gold was still on the rise.
Photographs of women’s underpants weren’t worth the paper they were printed on, and even high quality color motion pictures of wide-open beavers were going begging in the marketplace.

Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind.

Dwayne’s only companion at night was a Labrador retriever named Sparky. Sparky could not wag his tail—because of an automobile accident many years ago, so he had no way of telling other dogs how friendly he was. He had to fight all the time. His ears were in tatters. He was lumpy with scars

The teachers told the children that this was when their continent was discovered by human beings. Actually, millions of human beings were already living full and imaginative lives on the continent in 1492. That was simply the year in which sea pirates began to cheat and rob and kill them.