Joanna Russ, Introduction to "Letter to Susan Koppelman", in To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction page 171

Anyone who seriously tries to make received ideas do feminist work will find that the received ideas end up making her feminism do their work, and anyone who really thinks that respectability will do us good in any field--well, I don't know what to say. I am not against people lying their heads off when they have to, to make a living, but believing the junk you may be forced to practice is another matter.

Joanna Russ, The Female Man pages 140-141

We would gladly have listened to her (they said) if only she had spoken like a lady. But they are liars and the truth is not in them.

Shrill . . . vituperative . . . no concern for the future of society . . . maunderings of antiquated feminism . . . selfish femlib . . . needs a good lay . . . this shapeless book . . . of course a calm and objective discussion is beyond . . . twisted, neurotic . . . some truth buried in a largely hysterical . . . of very limited interest, I should . . . another tract for the trash can . . . burned her bra and thought that . . . no characterization, no plot . . . really important issues are neglected while . . . hermetically sealed . . . women's limited experience . . . another of the screaming sisterhood . . . a not very appealing aggressiveness . . . could have been done with wit if the author had . . . deflowering the pretentious male . . . a man would have given his right arm to . . . hardly girlish . . . a woman's book . . . another shrill polemic which the . . . a mere male like myself can hardly . . . a brilliant but basically confused study of feminine hysteria which . . . feminine lack of objectivity . . . this pretense at a novel . . . trying to shock . . . the tired tricks of the anti-novelists . . . how often must a poor critic have to . . . the usual boring obligatory references to Lesbianism . . . denial of the profound sexual polarity which . . . an all too womanly refusal to face facts . . . pseudo-masculine brusqueness . . . the ladies'-magazine level . . . trivial topics like housework and the predictable screams of . . . those who cuddled up to ball-breaker Kate will . . . unfortunately sexless in its outlook . . . drivel . . . a warped clinical protest against . . . violently waspish attack . . . formidable self-pity which erodes any chance of . . . formless . . . the inability to accept the female role which . . . the predictable fury at anatomy displaced to . . . without the grace and compassion which we have the right to expect . . . anatomy is destiny . . . destiny is anatomy . . . sharp and funny but without real weight or anything beyond a topical . . . just plain bad . . . we "dear ladies," whom Russ would do away with, unfortunately just don't feel . . . ephemeral trash, missiles of the sex war . . . a female lack of experience which . . . .

Q.E.D. Quod erat demonstrandum. It has been proved.

Joanna Russ, The Female Man page 94

The game is a dominance game called I Must Impress This Woman. Failure makes the active player play harder. Wear a hunched back or a withered arm; you will then experience the invisibility of the passive player. I'm never impressed--no woman ever is--it's just a cue that you like me and I'm supposed to like that. If you really like me, maybe I can get you to stop. Stop; I want to talk to you! Stop; I want to see you! Stop; I'm dying and disappearing!

SHE: Isn't it just a game?
HE: Yes, of course.
SHE: And if you play the game, it means you like me, doesn't it?
HE: Of course.
SHE: Then if it's just a game and you like me, you can stop playing. Please stop.
HE: No.
SHE: Then I won't play.
HE: Bitch! You want to destroy me. I'll show you. (He plays harder)
SHE: All right. I'm impressed.
HE: You really are sweet and responsive after all. You've kept your femininity. You're not one of those hysterical feminist bitches who wants to be a man and have a penis. You're a woman.
SHE: Yes. (She kills herself)

Joanna Russ, The Female Man pages 45-46

"Give us a good-bye kiss," said the host, who might have been attractive under other circumstances, a giant marine, so to speak. I pushed him away.

"What'sa matter, you some kinda prude?" he said and enfolding us in his powerful arms, et cetera--well, not so very powerful as all that, but I want to give you the feeling of the scene. If you scream, people say you're melodramatic; if you submit, you're masochistic; if you call names, you're a bitch. Hit him and he'll kill you. The best thing is to suffer mutely and yearn for a rescuer, but suppose the rescuer doesn't come?

"Let go, ------," said Janet (some Russian word I didn't catch).

"Ha ha, make me," said the host, squeezing her wrist and puckering up his lips; "Make me, make me," and he swung his hips from side to side suggestively.

No, no, keep on being ladylike!

"Is this human courting?" shouted Janet. "Is this friendship? Is this politeness?" She had an extraordinarily loud voice. He laughed and shook her wrist.

"Savages!" she shouted. A hush had fallen on the party. The host leafed dexterously through his little book of rejoinders but did not come up with anything. Then he looked up "savage" only to find it marked with an affirmative: "Masculine, brute, virile, powerful, good." So he smiled broadly. He put the book away.

"Right on, sister," he said.

So she dumped him. It happened in a blur of speed and there he was on the carpet. He was flipping furiously through the pages of his book; what else is there to do in such circumstances? (It was a little limp-leather--excuse me--volume bound in blue, which I think they give out in high schools. On the cover was written in gold WHAT TO DO IN EVERY SITUATION.)

"Bitch!" (flip flip flip) "Prude!" (flip flip) "Ball-breaker!" (flip flip flip flip) "Goddamn cancerous castrator!" (flip) "Thinks hers is gold!" (flip flip) "You didn't have to do that!"

Robert Sheckley, Journey Beyond Tomorrow (in the Dimensions of Sheckley Omnibus) pages 169-171

"Mr. Watts, these people do not look dead. And in actual fact, all exaggeration aside, they are not dead, are they?"

"I never put exaggeration aside," Watts told him. "But since you're a stranger, I'll try to explain a little more. To begin with, death is merely a matter of definition. Once the definition was very simple: you were dead when you stopped moving for a long time. But now the scientists have examined this antiquated notion more carefully, and have done considerable research on the entire subject. They have found that you can be dead in all important respects, but still go on walking and talking."

"What are these important respects?" Joenes asked.

"First of all," Watts told him, "the walking dead are characterized by an almost total lack of emotionality. They can feel only anger and fear, though they sometimes simulate other emotions in the crude manner of a chimpanzee pretending to read a book. Next, there is a robotic quality in their actions, which accompanies a cessation of the higher thinking processes. Frequently there is a reflex motion toward piety, which is not unlike the frantic movements that a chicken makes after its head has been chopped off. Because of this reflex, many of the walking dead are detected around churches, where some of them even try to pray. Others can be found on park benches or near subway exits--"

"Ah," said Joenes. "When I walked in the city late last night I saw certain men at those places--"

"Exactly," said Watts. "Those are the ones who no longer pretend that they are not dead. But others copy the living with great and pathetic earnestness, hoping to pass unnoticed. They can usually be detected because they overdo it, either by talking too much or by laughing too hard."

"I had no idea of all this," Joenes said.

"It is a tragic problem," Watts said. "The authorities are doing their best to cope with it, but it has assumed formidable proportions. I wish I could tell you other characteristics of the walking dead, and how they resemble the old-fashioned nonwalking dead, for I'm sure that you would find it interesting. But now, Mr. Joenes, I see a policeman approaching, and therefore I had better make my departure."

So saying, Watts broke into a full sprint and raced through the crowd. The policeman stared after him, but soon gave up the pursuit and returned to Joenes.

"Damn it," the policeman said. "I've lost him again."

"Is he a criminal?" Joenes asked.

"Smartest jewel thief in these parts," the policeman said, mopping his massive red brow. "He likes to disguise himself as a beatnik."

"He was talking to me about the walking dead," Joenes said.

"He's always making up those stories," the policeman told him. "Compulsive liar, that's what he is. Crazy. And dangerous as they come. Especially dangerous because he doesn't carry a gun. I've almost caught him three times. I order him to stop in the name of the law, just like the book says, and when he doesn't stop, I shoot at him. So far I've killed eight bystanders. The way I'm going, I'll probably never make sergeant. They make me pay for my own bullets, too."

"But if this Watts never carries a gun--" Joenes began, then stopped abruptly. He had seen a strange sullen expression cross the policeman's face, and had seen his hand drop to the butt of his gun. "What I meant to say," Joenes continued, "is there anything in what Watts told me about the walking dead?"

"Naw, that's just a beatnik line he makes up to kid people with. Didn't I tell you he was a jewel thief?"

"I forgot," Joenes said.

"Well don't forget it. I'm just a plain ordinary man, but a guy like Watts gets me sore. I do my duty just like the book says, and in the evenings I go home and watch the tv, except on Friday evenings when I go bowling. Does that sound like being a robot, like Watts says?"

"Of course not," Joenes said.

"That guy," the policeman continued, "talks about people not having no emotion. Let me tell you, I'm maybe no psychologist, but I know I got emotions. When I have this gun in my hand, I feel good. Does that sound like I got no emotions? Furthermore, let me tell you something. I was raised in a tough section of this city, and when I was a kid I used to run with a gang. We all had zip guns and gravity knives, and we enjoyed ourselves with armed robbery, murder, and rape. Does that sound like no emotion? And I might of gone right on in that way, from being a kid criminal to being an adult criminal, if I hadn't met this priest. He wasn't no stuffed shirt, he was just like one of us, because he knew that was the only way he could reach us wild types. He used to go out on stomps with us, and more than once I saw him cut the hell out of somebody with a little switchblade he always carried. So he was regular and we accepted him. But he was also a priest, and seeing he was regular I let him talk to me. And he told me how I was wasting my life in that way."

"He must have been a wonderful man," Joenes said.

"He was a saint," the policeman said, in a heavy brooding voice. "That man was a real saint, because he did everything we did but he was good inside and he always told us we should get out of criminality."

The policeman looked Joenes in the eye and said, "Because of that man, I became a cop. Me, who everyone thought would end up in the electric chair! And that Watts has the nerve to speak of the walking dead. I became a cop, and I've been a good cop instead of some lousy punk hoodlum like Watts. I've killed eight criminals in the line of duty, winning three merit badges from the department. And I've also accidentally killed 27 innocent bystanders who didn't get out of the way fast enough. I'm sorry about those people, but I've got a job to do, and I can't let people get in the way when I'm going after a criminal. And no matter what the newspapers say, I've never taken a bribe in my life, not even for a parking ticket." The policeman's hand tightened convulsively around the butt of his revolver. "I'd give a parking ticket to Jesus Christ himself and no number of saints would be able to bribe me. What do you think about that?"

"I think you are a dedicated man," Joenes said carefully.

"You're right. And I've got a beautiful wife and three wonderful children. I've taught them all how to shoot a revolver. Nothing's too good for my family. And Watts thinks he knows something about emotion! Christ, these smooth-talking bastards get me so sore sometimes I can feel my head coming off. It's a good thing I'm a religious man."

"I'm sure it is," Joenes said.

"I still go every week to see the priest who got me out of the gang. He's still working with kids, because he's dedicated. He's getting sorta old to use a knife, so now it's usually a zip gun, or sometimes a bicycle chain. That man has done more for the cause of law than all the youth rehabilitation centers in the city. I give him a hand sometimes, and between us we've redeemed fourteen boys who you would have thought were hopeless criminals. Many of them are respected businessmen now, and six have joined the police force. Whenever I see that old man, I feel religion."

"I think that's wonderful," Joenes said. He began backing away, because the policeman had drawn his revolver and was toying with it nervously.

Robert Sheckley, Journey Beyond Tomorrow (in the Dimensions of Sheckley Omnibus) page 163

Joenes said, "I stand upon my Constitutional rights, namely the First and Fifth Amendments, and respectfully decline to answer."

Pelops smiled thinly. "You may not do so, Mr. Joenes, since the Constitution to which you now so fervently cling has been reinterpreted, or rather brought up to date, by those of us who wish to preserve it from change and desecration. The Amendments you mention, Mr. Joenes--or should I say Comrade Joenes--will not permit you to be silent for reasons which any judge of the Supreme Court would have been glad to tell you--had you chosen to ask him!"

William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch pages 153-154

The forms of democracy are scrupulously enforced on the Island. There is a Senate and a Congress who carry on endless sessions discussing garbage disposal and outhouse inspection, the only two questions over which they have jurisdiction. For a brief period in the mid-nineteenth century, they had been allowed to control the Dept. of Baboon Maintenance but this privilege had been withdrawn owing to absenteeism in the Senate.

The purple-assed Tripoli baboons had been brought to the Island by pirates in the seventeenth century. There was a legend that when the baboons left the Island it would fall. To whom or in what way is not specified, and it is a capital offense to kill a baboon, though the noxious behavior of these animals harries the citizens almost beyond endurance. Occasionally someone goes berserk, kills several baboons and himself.

The post of President is always forced on some particularly noxious and unpopular citizen. To be elected President is the greatest misfortune and disgrace that can befall an Islander. The humiliations and ignominy are such that few Presidents live out their full term of office, usually dying of a broken spirit after a year or two. The Expeditor had once been President and served the full five years of his term. Subsequently he changed his name and underwent plastic surgery, to blot out, as far as possible, the memory of his disgrace.

Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman page 86

Apparently there is no limit, Joe remarked. Anything can be said in this place and it will be true and will have to be believed.

I would not mind being working this minute on a steamer in the middle of the sea, I said, coiling ropes and doing the hard manual work. I would like to be far away from here.

Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow pages 237-262

Proverbs for Paranoids, 1: You may never get to touch the Master, but you can tickle his creatures.
page 237

Proverbs for Paranoids, 2: The innocence of the creatures is in inverse proportion to the immorality of the Master.
page 241

Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.
page 251

Proverbs for Paranoids, 4: You hide, they seek.
page 262

George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London page 189

Another tramp told the story of Gilderoy, the Scottish robber. Gilderoy was the man who was condemned to be hanged, escaped, captured the judge who had sentenced him, and (splendid fellow!) hanged him.

George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London page 168

Sometimes, he said, when sleeping on the Embankment, it had consoled him to look up at Mars or Jupiter and think that there were probably Embankment sleepers there. He had a curious theory about this. Life on earth, he said, is harsh because the planet is poor in the necessities of existence. Mars, with its cold climate and scanty water, must be far poorer, and life correspondingly harsher. Whereas on earth you are merely imprisoned for stealing sixpence, on Mars you are probably boiled alive. This thought cheered Bozo, I do not know why. He was a very exceptional man.

William Gibson, Spook Country page 83

She afforded herself a quick scan of the rest of the clientele. Were a cruise missile just then to impact the corrugated roof of Skybar, she decided, there would be no great need for People to change its next cover.

William Gibson, Spook Country page 4

You are, she told herself, crazy. But that seemed for the moment abundantly okay, even though she knew that this was not a salubrious stretch for any woman, particularly alone. Nor for any pedestrian, this time of the morning. Yet this weather, this moment of anomalous L.A. climate, seemed to have swept any usual sense of threat aside. The street was as empty as that moment in the film just prior to Godzilla's first footfall.

Douglas Adams, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish page 594 (in omnibus edition)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in a moment of reasoned lucidity which is almost unique among is current tally of five million, nine hundred and seventy-three thousand, five hundred and nine pages, says of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation products that "it is very easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all.

"In other words--and this is the rock-solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation's Galaxywide success is founded--their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws."

Chumbawamba, "The Candidates Find Common Ground" from Never Mind the Ballots

A: Full employment, slave labor, and schemes
B: An unemployed workforce, the capitalist's dream
A & B: But let's keep Britain working
   Either way we must keep Britain working
A: Conventional weapons to kill people nicely
B: Nuclear weapons to keep the peace
A & B: But weapons definitely
   Either way we must defend ourselves
A: Nationalization, with one big boss
B: No, privatization, with lots of little bosses
A & B: But someone in control, of course
   Either way there must be someone giving orders

chorus:
A toast to democracy
The prison guard of this society
Sides in the voting game
Disappear into the same machine

A toast
To US bases and nuclear weapons
To stopping pickets, pulling down fences
To the British troops in Northern Ireland
To the wonderful victory in the Falklands
To the plastic bullet and the riot police
To the UDM, to the TUC
To isolating gays and to law and to order
To richer bosses, to poorer workers

chorus

A toast
To longer hours and to less pay
To the courts for those who get in our way
To the beating of the people who step out of line
To the use of troops to break a strike
To the expulsion of extremists and to political witch hunts
To repatriation, to benefit cuts
To peaceful settlements, and to no strike agreements
To authority, to power, to governments

To the annual rise in the MP's wage
To vested interests, to privilege
To the party who wins the next election
By definition a victory to capitalism

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pages 42-43

Arthur let out a low groan. He was horrified to discover that the kick through hyperspace hadn't killed him. He was now six light-years from the place that the Earth would have been if it still existed.

The Earth.

Visions of it swam sickeningly through his nauseated mind. There was no way his imagination could feel the impact of the whole Earth having gone, it was too big. He prodded his feelings by thinking that his parents and his sister had gone. No reaction. Then he thought of a complete stranger he had been standing behind in the queue at the supermarket two days before and felt a sudden stab--the supermarket was gone, everyone in it was gone. Nelson's Column had gone! Nelson's Column had gone and there would be no outcry, because there was no one left to make an outcry. From now on Nelson's Column only existed in his mind--his mind, stuck here in this dank smelly steel-lined spaceship. A wave of claustrophobia closed in on him.

England no longer existed. He'd got that--somehow he'd got it. He tried again. America, he thought, was gone. He couldn't grasp it. He decided to start smaller again. New York has gone. No reaction. He'd never seriously believed it existed anyway. The dollar, he thought, has sunk for ever. Slight tremor there. Every Bogart movie has been wiped, he said to himself, and that gave him a nasty knock. McDonald's, he thought. There is no longer any such thing as a McDonald's hamburger.

He passed out. When he came round a second later he found he was sobbing for his mother.

Edgar Allan Poe, "Berenicë" first two sentences

Misery is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform.

Samuel R. Delany, Dhalgren page 260

"After all, they were nice in a useless sort of way, which is, after all, the only way to be truly nice."

Samuel R. Delany, Dhalgren page 21

"It's funny," Tak said; they passed between. "You show me a place where they tell women to stay out of at night because of all the nasty, evil men lurking there to do nasty, evil things; and you know what you'll find?"

"Queers."