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.

“In the long run, he’s committing suicide,” said the driver. “Seems like the only kind of job an American can get these days is committing suicide in some way.”

Dwayne’s bad chemicals made him take a loaded thirty-eight caliber revolver from under his pillow and stick it in his mouth. This was a tool whose only purpose was to make holes in human beings.

Harry LeSabre might have weathered all this with only minor damage, if only Harry hadn’t been a secret transvestite. On weekends he liked to dress up in women’s clothing, and not drab clothing, either. Harry and his wife would pull down the window blinds, and Harry would turn into a bird of paradise.

His high school was named after a slave owner who was also one of the world’s greatest theoreticians on the subject of human liberty.

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