So I do have this ambivalence. Obviously I'm against militaries, because of what militaries do. In many ways though, the air force was unmilitary-like. They dropped bombs on people, but...they had a golf course.

They claimed no allegiance to any flag and valued no currency but luck and good contacts.

Why don't they make the whole plane out of that black box stuff?

Machinery which is not used is not capital.

No human thing is of serious importance.

All of flying is easy. Just takes learning. Like everything else. Like everything else.

Military intelligence was as nothing to military stupidity.

If the black box flight recorder is never damaged during a plane crash, why isn’t the whole airplane made out of that stuff?

Money is to Everything as an Aeroplane is to Australia. The aeroplane isn't Australia, but it remains the only practical way we know of reaching it. So perhaps, metonymically, the aeroplane is Australia after all.

Nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothing's ever worth the cost.

Parents are not interested in justice, they're interested in peace and quiet.

For the birds who own nothing — the reason they can fly.

Psi and/or magical powers, if real, are nearly useless.

Nevertheless, it strikes me more and more that America’s reputation for materialism is unfounded — that is, if a materialist is a person who thoroughly enjoys the physical world and loves material things. In this sense, we are superb materialists when it comes to the construction of jet aircraft, but when we decorate the inside of these magnificent monsters for the comfort of passengers it is nothing but frippery. High-heeled, narrow-hipped, doll-type girls serving imitation, warmed-over meals. For our pleasures are not material pleasures but symbols of pleasure — attractively packaged but inferior in content. The explanation is simple: most of our products are being made by people who do not enjoy making them, whether as owners or workers. Their aim in the enterprise is not the product but money, and therefore every trick is used to cut the cost of production and hoodwink the buyer, by coloring and packaging chicanery, into the belief that the product is well and truly made. The only exceptions are those products which simply must be excellent for reasons of safety or high cost of purchase — aircraft, computers, space-rockets, scientific instruments, and so forth. But the whole scheme is a vicious circle, for when you have made the money what will you buy with it? Other pretentious fakes made by other money-mad manufacturers.