"Whatever happened now would become the truth, that whatever he seemed to be would become what he was - already an American, in other words."
"Judge Woodward envisioned the new Detroit as an urban Arcadia of interlocking hexagons. Each wheel was to be separate yet united. This dream never quite came to be. Planning is for the world's great cities, for Paris, London, and Rome, for cities dedicated, at some level, to culture. Detroit, on the other hand, was an American city and therefore dedicated to money, and so design had given way to expediency."
"The adaptation [to assembly lines] has been passed down: we've all inherited it to some degree, so that we plug right into the joysticks and remotes, to repetitive motions of a hundred kinds."
"If they were going to kill you, would they knock?"
I think the idea of a string of silk being woven through time (aka the gene) was a really beautiful metaphor.
"From an early age they knew what little value the world placed in books, and so didn't waste their time with them. Whereas I, even now, persist in believing that these black marks on white paper bear the greatest significance, that if I keep writing I might be able to catch the rainbow of consciousness in a jar. The only trust fund I have is this story..."
"Society discriminated against women, no question. But what about the discrimination of being sent to war? Which sex was really thought to be expendable?"
"Writing is solitary, furtive. Still, you can only do what you're able. If this story is written only for myself, then so be it. But it doesn't feel that way. I feel you out there, reader. This is the only kind of intimacy I'm comfortable with. Just the two of us, here in the dark."
"That's what reality is. It's a dream everyone has together."
"Ecstasy. From the Greek Ekstasis. Meaning not what you think. Meaning not euphoria or sexual climax or even happiness. Meaning, literally: a state of displacement, of being driven out of one's senses."
