More from Fahrenheit 451

Still reading . . . here are a few more quotations that I found to be particularly applicable to contemporary culture:

Clarisse on: "People don't talk about anything. . . . They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming pools mostly and say how swell! But they all say the same things. . . . And most of the time in the caves they have the joke boxes on and the same jokes most of the time, or the musical wall lit and all the colored patterns running up and down, but it's only color and all abstract. And at the museums, have you ever seen? All abstract. That's all there is now. My uncle says it was different once. A long time back sometimes pictures said things or even showed people."

More from Clarisse: "My uncle says there used to be front porches. And people sat there sometimes at night, talking when they wanted to talk, rocking, and not talking when they didn't want to talk. Sometimes they just sat there and thought about things, turned things over. My uncle says the architects got rid of the front porches because . . . they didn't want people sitting like that doing nothing, rocking, talking; that was the wrong kind of social life."

Beatty (the main character's boss): "You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can't have our minorities upset and stirred. Ask yourself, What do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn't that right? . . .Someone's written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book. Serenity, Montag. Peace, Montag."

Beatty on politics: "If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him: give him one."

On schooling: "The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school. That's why we've lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we're almost snatching them from the cradle."