As for national greatness: It is probably true that all nations are great and even holy at the time of death. The Biafrans had never fought before. They fought well this time. They will never fight ag...
All people are insane, he said. They will do anything at any time, and God help anybody who looks for reasons.
The sea pirates who had the most to do with the creation of the newgovernment owned human slaves. They used human beings for machinery, and, evenafter slavery was eliminated, because it was so embarra...
When things are going really well, we should take time to notice it.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth," the long out-of-print science fiction writer went on.
Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.
When we passed a Catholic church, I recalled, he said, "You think your dad's a good chemist? They're turning soda crackers into meat in there. Can your dad do that?
I'm simply interested in what is going to happen next. I don't think I can control my life or my writing. Every other writer I know feels he is steering himself, and I don't have that feeling. I don't...
You want to know why I don’t have AIDS, why I’m not HIV-positive like so many other people? I don’t fuck around. It’s as simple as that. Trout
You know what the trouble is with New York? she asked me. No, I said. Nobody here, she said, believes that there is such a thing as innocence.
War is now a form of TV entertainment
Trout's favorite formula was to describe a perfectly hideous society, not unlike his own, and then, toward the end, to suggest ways in which it could be improved. In 2BRO2B he hypothecated an America...
Today we do. On other days we have wars as horrible as any you've ever seen or read about. There isn't anything we can do about them, so we simply don't look at them. We ignore them. We spend eternity...
There is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and...
Then you’ll do it brilliantly, darling. You’ll get to Pittsburgh yet.
The hand that stocks the drug stores rules the world. Let us start our Republic with a chain of drug stores, a chain of grocery stores, a chain of gas chambers, and a national game. After that, we can...
That is kind of like what I do, she said. She was demure about what she did. What she did was make people comfortable while she killed them.
He was a black hole to anyone who might imagine that he or she was a friend of his.
The primary benefit of practicing any art, whether well or badly, is that it enables one's soul to grow.
Many years ago I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America...