Bokonon Quotes

If I am ever put to death on the hook, expect a very human performance.

It is never a mistake to say good-bye.

I do not say that children at war do not die like men, if they have to die. To their everlasting honor and our everlasting shame, they do die like men, thus making possible the manly jubilation of patriotic holidays. But they are murdered children all the same.

A lover's a liar, To himself he lies, The truthful are loveless, Like oysters their eyes!

Man created the checkerboard; God created the karass.

Pay no attention to Caesar. Caesar doesn't have the slightest idea what's really going on.

She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is Doing, [writes Bokonon].

After the thing went off, after it was a sure thing that America could wipe out a city with just one bomb, a scientist turned to Father and said, 'Science has now known sin.' And do you know what Father said? He said, 'What is sin?

Oh, a lion hunter in the jungle dark, And a sleeping drunkard up in central park, and a Chinese dentist and a British queen All fit together in the same machine. Nice, nice, such very different people in the same device!

Anyone unable to understand how useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either.

I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around. Lucky me, lucky mud.

How complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is.

Someday, someday, this crazy world will have to end, And our God will take things back that He to us did lend. And if, on that sad day, you want to scold our God, Why just go ahead and scold Him. He'll just smile and nod.

Round and round we spin, with feet of lead and wings of tin.

In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in his cosmic loneliness. And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close to mud as man sat, looked around, and spoke. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely. "Everything must have a purpose?" asked God. "Certainly," said man. "Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God. And He went away.

All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.

"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."

Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.

Live by the harmless untruths that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.

The words were a paraphrase of the suggestion of Jesus: "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's." Bokonon's paraphrase was this: "Pay no attention to Caesar. Caesar doesn't have the slightest idea what's really going on.

If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who.

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.

Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.

They were lovebirds. They entertained each other endlessly with little gifts: sights worth seeing out the plane window, amusing or instructive bits from things they read, random recollections of times gone by. They were, I think, a flawless example of what Bokonon calls a duprass, which is a karass composed of only two persons.

I wanted all things to seem to make some sense, So we could all be happy, yes, instead of tense. And I made up lies, so they all fit nice, and I made this sad world a paradise

Unusual travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.