When you stay in your room and rage or sneer or shrug your shoulders, as I did for many years, the world and its problems are impossibly daunting. But when you go out and put yourself in real relation to real people, or even just real animals, thereโs a very real danger that you might end up loving some of them. And who knows what might happen to you then?
Jonathan FranzenThe reason this system canโt be overthrown in this country,โ Walter said, โis all about freedom. The reason the free market in Europe is tempered by socialism is that theyโre not so hung up on personal liberties there. They also have lower population growth rates, despite comparable income levels. The Europans are all-around more rational, basically. And the conversation about rights in this country isnโt rational. Itโs taking place on the level of emotion, and class resentments, which is why the right is so good at exploiting it.
Jonathan FranzenWalter had never liked cats. They'd seemed to him the sociopaths of the pet world, a species domesticated as an evil necessary for the control of rodents and subsequently fetishized the way unhappy countries fetishize their militaries, saluting the uniforms of killers as cat owners stroke their animals' lovely fur and forgive their claws and fangs. He'd never seen anything in a cat's face but simpering incuriosity and self-interest; you only had to tease one with a mouse-toy to see where it's true heart lay...cats were all about using people
Jonathan FranzenBirds were like dinosaurs' better selves. They had short lives and long summers. We all should be so lucky as to leave behind such heirs.
Jonathan Franzen