I hate it that Americans are taught to fear some books and some ideas as though they were diseases.

Jesus--if Kilgore Trout could only write!" Rosewater exclaimed. He had a point: Kilgore Trout's unpopularity was deserved. His prose was frightful. Only his ideas were good.

And, if you'll investigate the history of science, my dear boy, I think you'll find that most of the really big ideas have come from intelligent playfulness. All the sober, thin-lipped concentration is really just a matter of tidying up around the fringes of the big ideas.

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.

A society is only as healthy as its ideas are humane.

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

It shook up Trout to realize that even he could bring evil into the world — in the form of bad ideas.