Ivan Stang > Quotes

“If you sincerely desire a truly well-rounded education, you must study the extremists, the obscure and "nutty." You need the balance! Your poor brain is already being impregnated with middle-of-the-road crap, twenty-four hours a day, no matter what. Network TV, newspapers, radio, magazines at the supermarket... even if you never watch, read, listen, or leave your house, even if you are deaf and blind, the telepathic pressure alone of the uncountable normals surrounding you will insure that you are automatically well-grounded in consensus reality.”
― Ivan Stang, High Weirdness by Mail: A Directory of the Fringe-Mad Prophets, Crackpots, Kooks & True Visionaries

“The space monsters aren't about to let us get away with this masturbatory industrialization much longer, they watch our TV shows, they even play our god damned video games, they know all about us and can snuff our already disarrayed civilization with but a whisper to their ultimate computer brain, MWOWM, the brooding computer of the Xists which we will have soon too, the computer so complex it is not a machine, it is a moss-like independent growth of circuits which it prints itself, sprawling through our homes in the form of nondescript white stones laying here and there, talking, very quietly overwhelming our every thought, word, and deed, YES the Xists will “give” it to us, we floundering human beings will fight nuclear wars with each other trying to decide whether to turn this unwholesome ‘mouth of a Trojan gift-horse’ ON or OFF, in the end we will leave it ON, and then by God we won't be able to do WITHOUT it.”
― Ivan Stang, The Book of the SubGenius

“This is a crooked and perverse nation, friend. People are more worried about economy than ecology. JESUS! The lack of money makes life difficult, alright, but the presence of radiation and deathkulture chemicals is the very antithesis of life itself…and people run around arguing about the price of goddamn pantyhose.
One thing we MUST prevent, therefore, is letting the Church become a soporific, a “drug” that lets us accept the death of all life on Earth. Yeah, THAT’S funny, HA HA! This better not become some god-awful End Times PORN for those who can only “get off” on fear-and-laughter. The Church should make it easier to conceive of the humans’ inconceivable threat to themselves, but ONLY IF THAT MAKES US DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
THAT is the whole point.”
― Ivan Stang, The Book of the SubGenius

“We have a COVENANT with WOTAN and it is the Sacred Grudge-Chore of the SubGenius to SMITE The Conspirators and Their slavish Dupes: the Mediocretins, the stupid Pink Boys, the “Hoi Polloi,” Them, the Normals, the Somnabulacs, the Great Unwashed-In-The-Baptism-Of-The-Pee-Of-“Bob,” the malignant ones who breathe down our necks and abuse their territorial urges without ever dreaming that they’re doing it, Assouls, Cage Men, Infidels, Sames, Anthropophobiacs, Conformers, Timeservers, Mole People, Proleterrorists, Philistines, Pharisees, Witch-burners, the ones who have tried to maim our self-respect down through the centuries by making SLACK and antipredictability TABOO, the Thankers and Wankers, Heilers and Smilers, Sloths and Moths, Cons and Johns, Drivellers and Snivellers, Weepers and Sleepers; CreditHeads, Cliants, Kens and Barbies, Errorists, Yes-Buts, Ordinaryans and Lick Spittles, Corpulators, Signifying Monkeys, UnderAlls, the Slackless Ones…in short, the Remnants of Man: those very False Prophets who have been holding us back and forcing Time Addiction on Themselves…and…others…”
― Ivan Stang, The Book of the SubGenius

“Bob” can handle the aliens, but we must police ourselves.”
― Ivan Stang, The Book of the SubGenius