Thomas Pynchon

“Kekulé dreams the Great Serpent holding its own tail in its mouth, the dreaming Serpent which surrounds the World. But the meanness,…

— Thomas Pynchon

“The magic in these Masonic rituals is very, very old. And way back in those days, it worked. As time went on,…

— Thomas Pynchon

“The classic hustle is still famous, even today, for the cold purity of its execution: bring opium from India, introduce it into…

— Thomas Pynchon

“One morning Profane woke up early, couldn't get back to sleep and decided on a whim to spend the day like a…

— Thomas Pynchon

“One by one they are being picked off around him: in his small circle of colleagues the ratio slowly grows top-heavy, more…

— Thomas Pynchon

“A swaddled silence would be over the island, nights like that: if they complained, or had to cry for some lesion or…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Surely for as long as there have been nights as bad as this one---something to raise the possibility of another night that…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Don't forget the real business of war is buying and selling. The murdering and violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Out of that night and day of unconditional wrath, folks would’ve expected to see any city, if it survived, all newly reborn,…

— Thomas Pynchon

“There had hung the sense of buffering, insulation, she had noticed the absence of an intensity, as if watching a movie, just…

— Thomas Pynchon

It is a curve each of them feels, unmistakably. It is the parabola. They must have guessed, once or twice - guessed…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Later they went outside, where a light rain was blowing in, mixed with salt spray feathering off the surf. Shasta wandered slowly…

— Thomas Pynchon

“The rest of us, not chosen for enlightenment, left on the outside of Earth, at the mercy of a Gravity we have…

— Thomas Pynchon

“It isn't the sort of argument Pointsman relishes either. But he glances sharply at this young anarchist in his red scarf. "Pavlov…

— Thomas Pynchon

Darkness invades the dreams of the glassblower. Of all the unpleasantries his dreams grab in out of the night air, an extinguished…

— Thomas Pynchon

“They gaze at each other for a while, down here on the barroom floor of history, feeling sucker-punched, no clear way to…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Listen to me, Defecates-with-Pigeons. Long before any of you came here, we dream'd of you. All the people, even Nations far to…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Displaced Person’s Song If you see a train this evening, Far away, against the sky, Lie down in your woolen blanket, Sleep…

— Thomas Pynchon

“When the earliest Vikings started moving into the northern oceans, there’s one story about finding this huge fuckin opening at the top…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Call it freedom, it’s based on control. Everybody connected together, impossible anybody should ever get lost, ever again. Take the next step,…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Later than usual one summer morning in 1984, Zoyd Wheeler drifted awake in sunlight through a creeping fig that hung in the…

— Thomas Pynchon

“What I mean is something like a closed circuit. Everybody on the same frequency. And after a while you forget about the…

— Thomas Pynchon

“This seemed to be happening more and more lately out in Greater Los Angeles, among gatherings of carefree youth and happy dopers,…

— Thomas Pynchon

“What happens to men sometimes,' his father wants to tell Charlie, 'is that one day all at once they'll understand how much…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Damned Beaver/Jeremy is the War, he is every assertion the fucking War has ever made--that we are meant for work and government,…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Profane had got into this way of thinking, and along with parties in the daytime and a rotating shift system devised by…

— Thomas Pynchon

“It takes, unhappily, no more than a desk and writing supplies to turn any room into a confessional. This may have nothing…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Holy shit.” This is the kind of sunset you hardly see any more, a 19th-century wilderness sunset, a few of which got…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Yeah, but nowadays it's all you see anymore is cops, the tube is saturated with fucking cop shows, just being regular guys,…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Yet at least he had believed in the cars, maybe to excess: how could he not, seeing people poorer than him come…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Results have not been encouraging. We seem up against a dilemma built into Nature, much like the Heisenberg situation. There is nearly…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Why is your equation only for angels, Roger? Why can't we do something, down here? Couldn't there be an equation for us…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Oedipa wondered whether, at the end of this (if it were supposed to end), she too might not be left with only…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Somewhere beyond the battening, urged sweep of three-bedroom houses rushing by their thousands across all the dark beige hills, somehow implicit in…

— Thomas Pynchon

“It is a three-piece affair, everything quilted, long jacket, waistcoat, and trousers, which have Feet at the ends of them, all in…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Behind the hieroglyphic streets there would either be a transcendent meaning, or only the earth… Another mode of meaning behind the obvious,…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Perhaps the Ci-ty dreamed of an-other, en-emy city, float-ing across the sea to invade the es-tuary . . . or of waves…

— Thomas Pynchon

What’s this? What are the antagonists doing here – infiltrating their own audience? Well, they’re not really. It’s somebody else’s audience at…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Oedipa sat on the earth, ass getting cold, wondering whether, as Driblette had suggested that night from the shower, some version of…

— Thomas Pynchon

“Street cred. Anybody who got in before ’97 is considered OK – from ’97 to 2000 it can go either way, maybe…

— Thomas Pynchon