Julia’s Reviews > The Sirens of Titan > Status Update

“… I am writing this letter to tell you to calm down about the bad things and kind of look around and see if something good or something important anyway happened […]

You might just learn something when you’re in a mood to learn something. The only thing I ever learned was that some people are lucky and other people aren’t and not even a graduate of the Harvard Business School can say why.” 88, 89

“You go up to a man and say, ‘How are things going, Joe?’ And he says, ‘Oh, fine, fine—couldn’t be better.’ And you look into his eyes, and you see things really couldn’t be much worse. When you get right down to it, everybody’s having a perfectly lousy time of it, and I mean everybody. And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much.” 66

“‘Look forward to really being in love for the first time, Bea. Look forward to behaving aristocratically without any outward proofs of your aristocracy. Look forward to having nothing but the dignity and intelligence and tenderness that God gave you—look forward to making those materials and nothing else, and making something exquisite with them.’” 60

“‘Bea— if I seem indifferent to your misfortunes, it’s only because I know how well things are going to turn out in the end. If it seems crude of me not to hate the idea of your pairing off with Constant, it’s only a humble admission on my part that he’s going to make you a far better husband than I ever was or will be.’” 60

“‘Because you’d still have to take the roller-coaster ride. I didn’t design the roller coaster, I don’t own it, and I don’t say who rides and who doesn’t. I just know what it’s shaped like.’” 54

“‘Man — you must have some kind of guardian angel — lets you keep cool as a cucumber, no matter what…” 42

“‘How long is the human race going to be around, Master?’

‘I look at the future and I find that I shall not be in the Solar System when the human race dies out. So the end is as much a mystery as to you.’” 48

“Things fly this way and that, my boy, with or without messages. It’s chaos, and no mistake, for the Universe is just being born. It’s the great becoming that makes the light and the heat and the motion, and bangs you from hither to yon.” 34

“The insane, on occasion, are not without their charms.” 37

“And to what do you attribute this wonderful luck of yours?”
“Who knows? I guess somebody up there likes me.” 15

“… everything that ever has been always will be, and everything that ever will be always has been.” 20