Quotessence
Home / Authors / John Barnes Books
John Barnes

John Barnes Books

Author

Related Quotes

“Ah. Well, it stands for Freedom From Morality. We don't think healthy amorality happens naturally." "But you're not amoral," I pointed out. I would trust you to keep your word any time. You don't steal. I've never known you to harm anyone except enemy soldiers in time of war." He laughed. "I didn't say 'immoral', I said amoral. You really didn't read your guidebook. A person who has a compulsive need to break moral commandments is as much a prisoner as the person who feels bound to obey them. And the human brain is hardwired to produce moral commandments. That is why we think you have to train young people to keep them from developing morality and blocking their pursuit of pleasure. I teach it because --" "It gives you an outlet for your sadistic urge to confuse children.”

EducationMoralityMoralsAmorality
Book:The Merchants of Souls
Create image

“... they only trusted the wisdom of people brighter and more worldly than themselves when it was expressed in the vocabulary and style of rural idiots. In his guise as Brazenydol, he had once had a contract with DARPA to teach a team of physicists the basic terminology of tractor pulls so that they could give an acceptable explanation of omniwavelength stealth to a Congressional committee that didn’t understand tractor pulls, either.”

FunnySatireAmerican PoliticsFunny But TrueConsultants
Book:Raise the Gipper!
Create image

“Mitt Romney's first interview with Zombie Reagan: Mitt Romney came in with cheerful assurance, because he wasn’t capable of anything else. “Let me first welcome you back to this side of the veil, Mr. President.” “Yeah, Mitt, it’s good to see you looking so well. Your father says hello, and he wanted me to add specially that whatever unfortunate negative things you might remember him saying to you when you were a kid, he always tried to tell you the truth and he hopes you’ve used it to improve, and he understands that even with the help of those comments, it might just not have been in you to improve. He wants you to remember he still loves you no matter what you’ve become, or even if you haven’t chosen to become any one thing in particular.” “That’s very kind. I miss my dad even now.” “Oh, so do I. I remember George as always that kind of guy, he had your back, whenever you’d think to watch your back, you’d find him somewhere around there, ready for action with that knife already drawn.”

SatirePolitical SatireRonald ReaganZombie ReaganMitt Romney
Book:Raise the Gipper!
Create image

“Newt Gingrich, Reagan reflected, had never in his life fit properly into a suit. He still looked like the fat, despised, teacher’s-pet, suck-up junior debating whiz who was going to fall apart in his senior year, except he was now fifty years past it. Back when I was alive, he had that same querulous expression of a guy who didn’t understand two big things: 1. being smart doesn’t make you popular, and 2. even if it did, he isn’t smart enough for it to work for him. He remembered trying to explain it to Nancy, who had told him that, “Ronnie, granted that Newt is sometimes irritating, you have to admit he’s brighter than most Congressmen—” “So is every horse out at Rancho del Cielo, Mommy, and half the rocks for that matter,” he’d said.”

Political SatireRonald ReaganRight WingersNewt GingrichZombie Reagan
Book:Raise the Gipper!
Create image

“Fox News gets to the heart of the Zombie Reagan story: Well, Jeremy, of course on line polls are not at all scientific, in fact they’re pretty much completely bogus and in this case it’s one that was made up on the spot by a high school student, but we all know that misleading non-information is always better than dead air, so here goes. The earliest survey taken since the rather startling resurrection of the former president is looking awfully good for the challenger and awfully not good for President Obama.”

Fox NewsPolitical SatireRight WingersZombie Reagan
Book:Raise the Gipper!
Create image

“I would take it as a personal favor if you would use the term Ambient Temperature Risen American.” “Ha, ha, ha.” He saw that Reagan was not smiling. “Ah, of course, anyway, I just wanted to say that many of my close friends are at ambient temperature, in fact many of them have become estates, which I think we have to learn to think of as they are every bit as much a person as any corporation, or any other corporation if the estate happens to be incorporated or own a corporation, because we have to think about that. And I want you to know that I can identify very strongly with that, because, in fact, many of my ancestors are ambient temperature also, as I know from having attended their baptisms.”

Political SatireZombie ReaganMitt Romney
Author:John Barnes
Create image

“I gave up drinking, and the next time I saw Bonny at a party, she was mad at me about that too, and went off and made out all night with Chip Neminech, the tackle who demonstrated that not only is there no I in team, there’s no Q, either. I suppose, given that my mother was a girl, I shouldn’t have been surprised that some of them could get pretty weird.”

Teens Sex Awkward Jocks
Book:Tales of the Madman Underground
Create image

“... once you were in, they put a note in your file that said you were in therapy, and all your teachers saw that file. They might as well have tattooed CRAZY on your forehead. The next year every teacher would be watching you for the first weird thing you did—and has there ever been a kid who never does anything an adult considers weird?”

YearsFirstsWellsDoeSaidMightWould BeKidsNextSawsTeacherCrazyAdultsNotesTherapyFilesNext YearForeheadsWeird ThingsTattooed
Book:Tales of the Madman Underground
Create image