Vonnegut: Cat's Cradle

Granfalloons!

"Hazel's obsession with Hoosiers around the world was a textbook example of a false karass, of a seeming team that was meaningless in terms of the ways God gets things done, a textbook example of what Bokonon calls a granfalloon. Other examples of granfalloons are the Communist party, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the General Electric Company, the International Order of Odd Fellows-and any nation, anytime, anywhere" (91-92)

"Pro patria. What do they mean anyway? They mean, 'For one's country.' Any country at all" (256)

Useful lies

"Nothing in this book is true. 'Live by the foma (harmless truths) that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy" (epigraph)

"The first sentence in The Book of Bokonon is this: 'All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies'" (5)

"Anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either" (5-6)

Cat's cradle

"No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's...No damn cat, and no damn cradle" (166)

"From the way she talked I thought it was a very happy marriage.""See the cat? See the cradle?" (179)

Bokonon's strategy

"Well, when it became evident that no governmental or economic reform was going to make the people much less miserable, the religion became the one real instrument of hope. Truth was the enemy of the people, because the truth was so terrible, so Bokonon made it his business to provide the people with better and better lies" (172)