Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut

 

Her smile was glassy, and she was ransacking her mind for something to say, finding nothing in it but used Kleenex and costume jewelry. (p. 33).

 

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. (p. 182; Book of Bokonon).

 

I walked away from Frank, just as The Books of Bokonon advised me to do. “Beware of the man who works hard to learn something , learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before,” Bokkonon tells us. “He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.” (p. 281).