“Like I told you on Thanksgiving, pretending is a lousy way to get through life.”

“The way to get through normal life is to pretend it isn't getting to you. If you let on that you're hurt, the other animals will turn on you and tear you to pieces. Don't attract the attention of predators.”

“See. I told you I would get that boy to the alter eventually. All I had to do was pretend I was a loon.”

“While complying can be an effective strategyfor physical survival, it's a lousy one for personal fulfillment. Living a satisfying life requires more than simply meeting the demands of those incontrol. Yet in our offices and our classrooms we have way too much compliance and way too little engagement. The former might get youthrough the day, but only the latter will get you through the night.”

“Something refused to come into focus in my thinking. Indistinctly, as though in a fog, shapes moved toward me and retreated just beyond cognition. But that getting a hold of things is the uncertainty. As the Tractatus says right at the beginning, “The world is everything that is the case.” It seemed as though the Mammy≈Divas® were just like Steve Jobs, trying to have reality bent to their own wills. Objectively, the iPhone was a muddle of mysticism and logic—breakable glass, non-ergonomic design, lousy battery life, lousy irreplaceable battery, lousy headphone jack, lousy virtual keyboard, lousy email, lousy memory, lousy lice, etc., etc, and an interface that you had to adapt to by pretending as an article of faith that no adaptation was required. The Mammy≈Divas® promised a seamless racial interface—eternal blackness ordered and majestic. They put a benign face on their lust for panoptic power. They promised to discipline and punish with pancakes.”

“The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it. You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a headache.”