top of page
Society Quotes


"People taking the time and energy to ask about what they do not understand - I have renewed hope that society can shed its superstitions and embrace the enlightenment that comes from just a basic understanding of how the universe works."


"I believe that the number 1 most important problem in the United States right now, is the fact that kids will go to school and shoot other kids. And that kids get so hurt at school and at home, that they feel the need to do that. And then, the fact that people are not identifying this as the number one problem of greatest importance to attend to, is the second most important problem!"


"We have barely emerged from centuries of barbarism. It's not a surprise that there are shocking inequities in this world. It is hard work to climb down out of the trees and walk upright,and build a viable global civilization when you start with technology that is made of rocks and sticks and fur. This is a project, and progress is dificult."


"Right, my phone. When these things first appeared, they were so cool. Only when it was too late did people realize they are as cool as electronic tags on remand prisoners."


"There's no respect for older people at all today, and that's saddening. Look at the way crime against older people has risen! You know, there's no calling people 'Mr' or 'Mrs' now, they just call you, and it's all 'fuck off' and the likes of."


"And her delicacy offended. Who wants a delicate whore! Claude would even ask you to turn your face away when she squatted over the bidet. All wrong! A man, when he's burning up with passion, wants to see things; he wants to see everything, even how they make water."


"This society doesn't work without booze " our parties aren't good enough, our conversations aren't sufficiently interesting, nor is our self-confidence high enough to sustain our interactions without alcohol. It's everywhere, lubricating everything."


"We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one."


"The UFOs were nothing more than the collective fantasies of a stressed out society... The world into which UFOs had appeared was one of under-the-desk siren drills against nuclear annihilation. Society had made a new myth, a communal idea of something outside a species apparently intent on dooming itself."


"Society bristles with enigmas which look hard to solve. It is a perfect maze of intrigue."


"The complexity of the so-called individual that's been praised for decades in America somehow has narrowed itself to the 'me'. When I was a young girl we were called citizens " American citizens. We were second-class citizens, but that was the word. In the 50s and 60s they started calling us consumers. So we did " consume. Now they don't use those words any more " it's the American taxpayer and those are different attitudes."


"There's so much one doesn't know; it wasn't my business to know. I mean, when a child asks you how a helicopter works or who made the world"well, what are you to answer if you're a Beta and have always worked in the Fertilizing Room? What are you to answer?"


"Our teens are embedded in a culture driven by competition and perfectionism, where success is defined by status, performance and their appearance."


"They be marching hand in hand, like going to war."


"The betterment of a community directly depends on the betterment of lives in that Community."


"It's a shame, when I'm at the checkout line, and the cashier holds up my bill to the light, in search for a ghost president, or slashing a yellow marker to see if counterfeit. Even in money we can't be trusted. Makes we wonder whats next, will the government make a marker to slash our hand, or an x-ray we will have to walk through, to check if we have a dishonest heart or corrupt spirit?"


"You can argue that it's a different world now than the one when Matthew Shepard was killed, but there is a subtle difference between tolerance and acceptance. It's the distance between moving into the cul-de-sac and having your next door neighbor trust you to keep an eye on her preschool daughter for a few minutes while she runs out to the post office. It's the chasm between being invited to a colleague's wedding with your same-sex partner and being able to slow-dance without the other guests whispering."


"Acquaintance n: a person whom we know well enough to borrow from but not well enough to lend to."


"Or maybe he means in a richer world the begging population is melting away. But no to that too. So maybe, perhaps, he means there aren't many 'human beings' left to look, see, and understand well enough for one to ask and one to give. Everyone busy, running, jumping, there's no time to study one another. But I guess that's bilge and hogwash, slop and sentiment."


"It's certainly not too late to change to the winning side. But you know, you also have the freedom to stay just where you are. That's what it means to be an American. That's the miracle of America. Freedom to believe means the freedom to believe the wrong thing, after all. Just as freedom of speech gives you the right to stay silent."


"The second death. To think that you died and no one would remember you. I wondered if this was why we tried so hard to make our mark in America. To be known. Think of how important celebrity has become. We sing to get famous; expose our worst secrets to get famous; lose weight, eat bugs, even commit murder to get famous. Our young people post their deepest thoughts on public web sites. They run cameras from their bedrooms. It's as if we are screaming Notice Me! Remember Me! Yet the notoriety barely lasts. Names quickly blur and in time are forgotten."


"As an individual I stand out.As a member of society, you don't."


"Young mothers are the most vicious tribe in the world if you don't fit in."


"In the past the need for a hierarchal form of society has been the doctrine specifically of the High. It had been preached by kings and aristocrats and the priests, lawyers and the like who were parasitical upon them, and it had generally been softened by promises of an imaginary world beyond the grave."



"Foulmouthed individuals seem to have their neuron systems replaced by colon structures, given that their terminology profusely consists of "sh*t and f*ck". ['Tolerance zero']"


"For a privileged minority, Western democracy provides the leisure, the facilities, and the training to seek the truth lying hidden behind the veil of distortion and misrepresentation, ideology and class interest, through which the events of current history are presented to us."


"This is the city, and I am one of the citizens/Whatever interests the rest interests me."


"The patriotic or religious bumper stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers, who are usually talking on cell phones as they cut people off in order to get just twenty stupid feet ahead in the traffic jam..."


"She...can talk brillantly upon any subject provided she knows nothing about it."


"All women are brought up from the very earliest years in the belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men; not self-will,and government by self-control, but submission and yielding to the control of others. All the moralities tell them that it is their nature to live fir others;to make complete abnegation of themselves,and to have no life but in their affections."


"I can't imagine why a media company views a law preventing the commission of hate speech as a restriction on media freedom, but it is probably similar to how some religious folk view hate speech as being essential to religious freedom."


"I am very much concerned that American Negroes achieve their freedom here in the United States. But I am also concerned for their dignity, for the health of their souls, and must oppose any attempt that Negroes may make to do to others what has been done to them."


"A society with a great number of prisons is a totally failed society because it has terribly failed to create a marvellous society where crime is not something widespread but an exception!"


"If you want to understand the causes of aggression, study police officers."


"The land of embarrassment and breakfast."
bottom of page

