9 Thomas Pynchon Quotes on Politics

Thomas Pynchon quotes on politics

9. He had decided long ago that no Situation had any objective reality: it only existed in the minds of those who happened to be in on it at any specific moment. Since these several minds tended to form a sum total or complex more mongrel than homogeneous, The Situation must necessarily appear to a single observer much like a diagram in four dimensions to an eye conditioned to seeing the world in only three. Hence the success or failure of any diplomatic issue must vary directly with the degree of rapport achieved by the team confronting it. This had led to the near obsession with teamwork which had inspired his colleagues to dub him Soft-show Sydney, on the assumption that he was at his best working in front of a chorus line. But it was a neat theory, and he was in love with it.The only consolation he drew from the present chaos was that his theory managed to explain it.

12. Right and left; the hothouse and the street. The Right can only live and work hermetically, in the hothouse of the past, while outside the Left prosecute their affairs in the streets manipulated by mob violence. And cannot live but in the dreamscape of the future.

17. 'You one of those right wing nut outfits?' inquired the diplomatic Metzger. Fallopian twinkled. 'They accuse us of being paranoids.' 'They?' inquired Metzger, twinkling also. 'Us?' asked Oedipa.

25. Tibet is a special case. Tibet was deliberately set aside by the Empire as free and neutral territory, a Switzerland for the spirit where there is no extradition, and Alp-Himalayas to draw the soul upward, and danger rare enough to tolerate.

36. If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.

48. It can get pretty fascist in here...

57. If America was a person,- and it sat down,- Lancaster town would be plunged into a Darkness unbreathable.

58. It is usually not wise to discuss matters of costume with people like this,- politics or religion being far safer topicks.

59. 'If the U.S. was a person,' he later became fond of saying, 'and it sat down, Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness'