Social Critic Quotes

“The Human Species could have been great but instead we became satisfied with lights on our tennis shoes.”

“I simply decided that dope wasn't worth the ritual.”

“Life is not that complicated.”

“Things I wonder about the FBI's list of the "Ten Most Wanted" criminals: When they catch a guy and he comes off the list, does number eleven automatically move up? And does he see it as a promotion? Does he call his criminal friends and say, "I made it, Bruno. I'm finally on the list"?”

“I recently went to a new doctor and noticed he was located in something called the Professional Building. I felt better right away.”

“Pardon me I've got nothing to say.”

“I've never been quarantined. But the more I look around the more I think it might not be a bad idea.”

“Once you leave the womb, conservatives don't care about you until you reach military age. Then you're just what they're looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers.”

“If you you think there is a solution, you're part of the problem.”

“I can remember staring at the orphanage and feeling envy.”

“Most people are not particularly good at anything.”

“Leadership camp? Isn't that where Hitler went?”

“I think self-expression is present at all times, and whether or not you're talking about the outside world or your responses to it depends on the moment and the subject.”

“I am a personal optimist but a skeptic about all else. What may sound to some like anger is really nothing more than sympathetic contempt. I view my species with a combination of wonder and pity, and I root for its destruction. And please don't confuse my point of view with cynicism; the real cynics are the ones who tell you everything's gonna be all right.”

“Next time you see someone sleeping, make believe you're in a science fiction movie. And whisper, 'The creature is regenerating itself.'”

“I never joined the Boy Scouts. I don't trust any organization that has a handbook.”

“There is a certain amount of righteous indignation I hold for the American culture, because to get back to the real root of it, to get broader about it, my opinion that is my species - and my culture in America specifically - have let me down and betrayed me. I think this species had great, great promise, with this great upper brain that we have, and I think we squandered it on God and Mammon. And I think this culture of ours has such promise, with the promise of real, true freedom, and then everyone has been shackled by ownership and possessions and acquisition and status and power.”

“To my surprise, my marijuana use has been tapering off steadily.”

“If the Cincinnati Reds were really the first major league baseball team, who did they play?”

“Have you ever noticed that the lawyer always smiles more than the client?”

“It used to be cars had cool names: Dart, Hawk, Fury, Cougar, Firebird, Hornet, Mustang, Barracuda. Now we have Elantra, Altima, Acura, Lumina, Sentra, Corolla, Maxima, Tercel. Further proof that America has lost its edge.”

“You must have seen great changes since you were a young man," said Winston tentatively. The old man's pale blue eyes moved from the darts board to the bar, and from the bar to the door of the Gents ... "The beer was better," he said finally. "And cheaper! When I was a young man, mild beer - wallop we used to call it - was fourpence a pint. That was before the war, of course." "Which war was that?" said Winston. "It's all wars," said the old man vaguely. He took up his glass, and his shoulders straightened again. "'Ere's wishing you the very best of 'ealth!”

“I had the lonely child's habit of making up stories and holding conversations with imaginary persons, and I think from the very start my literary ambitions were mixed up with the feeling of being isolated and undervalued. I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts, and I felt that this created a sort of private world in which I could get my own back for my failure in everyday life.”

“He loved Big Brother.”

“Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache... Whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own emptiness.”