Quotes from Time Out Of Joint ( 1959 )

"Anyhow I don't think there's going to be any depression; that's just Democratic talk. I'm so tired of those old Democrats trying to make out like the economy's going to bust down or something." "Aren't you a Democrat?...From the South?" "Not any more. Not since I moved up here. This is a Republican state, so I'm a Republican."

"You can't tell anything by the blurb…Every book that's written these days is advertised like that." "True…There's sure no principles left in the world any more."

The odd thing in this world is that an eager-beaver type, with no original ideas, who mimes those in authority above him right to the last twist of necktie and scrape of chin, always gets noticed Gets selected. Rises.

"Those miserable ads…Why's the volume level always higher on ads than on the programme? You always have to turn it down."

For a woman who wore glasses…Junie Black could look astonishingly depraved.

"I can't find the light cord," he said, furious now, wanting to get his pill and get back to play his hand.

"I don't like a permanent thing…Probably I picked up a nomadic outlook in the war…and before that, my familymoved around a lot. My father and mother were divorced. There's a real resistance in my personality toward settling down…being defined in terms of one house, one wife, one family of kids. Slippers and pipe."

Could I fall in love with a little trollopy, giggly, ex-high school girl who's married to an eager-beaver type, and who still prefers a banana split with all the trimmings to a good wine or a good whisky or even a good dark beer?

We have a hodge-podge of leaks in our reality, he said to himself. A drop here, a couple of drops over there in the corner. A moist spot forming on the ceiling. But where's it getting in? What's it mean?

When cab drivers recognise me, he decided, it's probably not in my mind. But when the heavens open and God speaks to me by name…that's when the psychosis takes over.

"Infantile guilt," Junie said, with derision. Bill Black said, "Fear. Plain fear." "You're ashamed." "No," he said. "infantile fear. Adult fear." " 'Adult fear'," Junie snorted. "There's no such thing." "Yes there is, " he said.

"You have to take a chance with someone…Or you can't live."

It's the government that's talking, he thought to himself. Not simply a middle-aged woman who wants to be doing something useful. These are facts, not the opinions of a single person. This is reality.

Anxiety is supposed to be a transformation of repressed hostility.

"Why would peple want to live on the Moon?" the girl murmured. "Chronic malcontents," he said, sleepily. "Normal people don't need to. Normal people would be satisfied with life as it is."

The lunatics, for the most part, consisted of discontented people, unestablished young couples, ambitious young men and their wives, few with children, none with property or responsibility.

"Is it because you feel that everything you might need is available here? A big store, a supermarket, is a complete world in itself?"

"In a civil war…every side is wrong. It's hopeless to try to untangle it. Everyone is a victim."