Daniel Quinn

“Words are my profession; I seized these and demanded that they explain themselves, that they cease to be ambiguous.”

p.25

“They made an ingenuous and disorganized effort to escape from captivity but ultimately failed, because they were unable to find the bars of the cage.  If you can’t discover what’s keeping you in, the will to get out soon becomes confused and ineffectual.”

p.26

The story of Hans and Kurt

p.28

Mere acquaintanceship leaves me unsatisfied, and few people are willing to accept the burdens and risks of friendship as I conceive of it.

p.34

“’what was it that held them captive?’ . . .’Hitler’s charisma’.  HE certainly had that.  But charisma only wins people’s attention.  Once you have their attention, you have to have something to tell them.’”

p.37

“Once you learn to discern the voice of Mother Culture humming in the background, telling her story over and over again to the people of your culture, you’ll never stop being conscious of it.  Wherever you go for the rest of your life, you’ll be tempted to say to the people around you, ‘How can you listen to this stuff and not recognize it for what it is?’  And if you do this, people will look at you oddly and wonder what the devil you’re talking about.  In other words, if you take this educational journey with me, you’re going to find yourself alienated from the people around you- friends, family, past associates, and so on.”  “That I can stand,” I told him, and let it go at that.”

p.44

“They’ve been told an explaining story.  They’ve been given an explanation of how things came to be this way, and this stills their alarm.  This explanation covers everything, . . .and it satisfies them.  Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it pacifies them.  They put their shoulders to the wheel during the day, stupefy themselves with drugs or television at night, and try not to think too searchingly about the world they’re leaving their children to cope with.”

p.50

“If an eighth-grade teacher invited you to explain how all this began, would you read the class the first chapter of Genesis?”

p.62

“I was wrong ,” I told him.  ‘What more do you want?”  “Astonishment,” he said.  I nodded.  “ I’m astonished, all right.  I just don’t let it show.”  “I should have gotten you when you were seventeen.”  I shrugged meaning that I wished he had.”

p.88

“Certain knowledge about how to live is . . .unobtainable in any of the ways we derive certain knowledge.  As I say it’s just not out there.”  “Have you ever looked out there?”  I snickered.

p.91

According to your maps, the world of thought is coterminous with your culture.  It ends at the border of your culture, and if you venture beyond that border, you simply fall off the edge of the world.  Do you see what I mean?”

p.97

“The people of your culture are in the same condition [as those who first attempted manned flight] when it comes to learning how they ought to live. They have to proceed by trial and error, because they don’t know the relevant laws - and don’t even know that there are laws.”

p.129

“This law that you have so admirably described defines the limits of competition in the community of life.  You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down your competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food.  In other words, you may compete but you may not wage war.”[individual as the world, competition as consumption]

p.162

“Not knowing the truth, he might say to himself, ‘Whatever I can justify doing is good and whatever I cannot justify doing is evil.’”

p.164

“And if any say, “Let’s put off the burdens of the criminal life and live in the hands of the gods once again,” I will kill them, for what they say is evil.  And if any say, “Let’s turn aside from our misery and search for that other tree,” I will kill them, for what they say is evil.”

p.166

“The disaster occurred when, ten thousand years ago, the people of your culture said, ‘We’re as wise as the gods and can rule the world as well as they.’  When they took into their own hands the power of life and death over the world, their doom was assured.”

p.179

Adam as man and Eve as life.

“Adam’s temptation wasn’t sex or lust or uxoriousness.  Adam was tempted by Life.” . . .”Consider: A hundred men and one woman does not spell a hundred babies, but one man and a hundred women does.” . . .”A band of herders that consists of fifty men and one woman is in no danger of experiencing a population explosion. . .”

p.181

“When Adam accepted the fruit of that tree, he succumbed to the temptation to live without limit - and so the person who offered him that fruit is named life.”

p.212

“The fact that I can’t give you reasons for not learning something doesn’t supply me with a reason for teaching it.”

p.227

“So what’s the good of having more food that we need?”. . .”When you have more food than you need, then the gods have no power over you.” . . ”You save it so that when they send a drought, you can say, ‘Not me, goddamn it!  I’m not going hungry, and there’s nothing you can do about it, because my life is in my own hands now!’”