"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."

...we took the 10 machines we agreed were the most beguiling, and we put them on permanent exhibit in the foyer of this library underneath a sign whose words can surely be applied to this whole ruined planet nowadays: THE COMPLICATED FUTILITY OF IGNORANCE

I can think of no more stirring symbol of man's humanity to man than a fire engine.

There are too many of us and we are all too far apart.

It's only recently that I've come to understand that writers are not marginal to our society, that they, in fact, do all our thinking for us, that we are writing myths and our myths are believed, and that old myths are believed until someone writes a new one.

Human beings will believe in all kinds of things that aren't true, and that's okay. And TV is a part of that.

Thinking doesn't seem to help very much. The human brain is too high-powered to have many practical uses in this particular universe.