"Kilgore Trout ... could not make it on the outside. That is no disgrace. A lot of good people can't make it on the outside." Prologue, p. ix

"[the photograph] was widely interpreted as showing how ashamed I was, haggard, horrified, unable to look anyone in the eye. It was in fact a photograph of a man who had just set his pants on fire." p. 7

"The shocking song, then, may really have been a way of honoring the powers of women, of dealing with the fears they inspired. It might properly be compared with a song making fun of lions, sung by lion hunters on a night before a hunt." p. 11

"...what is flirtatiousness but an argument that life must go on and on and on?" p. 24

"Nothing else in life is nearly so obsessive as war, war, war." p. 28

"'...the Nazis', [Ruth] said, '...understood God...