Frank’s French was worse than no French at all, like listening to someone attack the language with a hatchet. — location: 3324

Je me sens vu

Economics is like astrology in that sense, except that economics serves to justify the current power structure, and so it has a lot of fervent believers among the powerful.” — location: 4435

“The King asked his wise men for some single thing that would make him happy when he was sad, but sad when he was happy. They consulted and came back with a ring engraved with the message ‘This Too Will Pass.’” — location: 4709

“Maybe so. In any case, whole cultures were built around the idea of the gift, in Malaysia, in the American northwest, in many primitive cultures. In Arabia we gave water, or coffee. Food and shelter. And whatever you were given, you did not expect to keep, but gave it back again in your turn, hopefully with interest. You worked to be able to give more than you received. Now we think that this can be the basis for a reverent economics.” — location: 4718

This arrangement resembles the prehistoric way to live, and it therefore feels right to us, because our brains recognize it from three millions of years practicing it. In essence our brains grew to their current configuration in response to the realities of that life. So as a result people grow powerfully attached to that kind of life, when they get the chance to live it. It allows you to concentrate your attention on the real work, which means everything that is done to stay alive, or make things, or satisfy one’s curiosity, or play. That is Utopia, John, especially for primitives and scientists, which is to say everybody. — location: 5126

Most ignorance is by choice, you know, and so ignorance is very telling about what really matters to people. — location: 5637

and so of course the so-called rich elite are in actuality poor as well, disengaged from real human work and therefore from real human accomplishment, parasitical in the most precise sense, and yet powerful too as parasites that have taken control can be, sucking the gifts of human work away from their rightful recipients which are the seven generations, and feeding on them while increasing the repressive powers that keep them in place!” — location: 5713

“It’s impossible!” Frank exclaimed. “We’re part of the world, we can’t escape it.” “Can’t we? It’s only the blue evening star, the world you speak of. This red world is the only real one for us, now.” — location: 6884