Gravity's Rainbow

Tonight he feels the potency of every word: words are only an eye-twitch away from the things they stand for.

They sit still as the painted dogs now, silent, oddly unable to touch. Death has come in the pantry door: stands watching them, iron and patient, with a look that says try to tickle me.

They are in love. Fuck the war.

"Then he has a confederate. Somehow—hypnosis, drugs, I don't know—they're getting to his man and tranquilizing him. For God's sake, next you'll be consulting horoscopes."
"Hitler does."

"What's the most frequent word?" asks Jessica. "Your number one."
"The same as it's always been at these affairs," replies the statistician, as if everyone knew: "death."

It never does seem to mat-ter if there's daaaanger, For Danger's a roof I fell from long ago —

Solitude, even among the meshes of this war, can when it wishes so take him by the blind gut and touch, as now, possessively.

And he also knew at first hand what happens to dreams with no money to support them.

Well. What happens when paranoid meets paranoid? A crossing of solipsisms. Clearly. The two patterns create a third: a moire, a new world of flowing shadows, interferences. ..

Guard your thoughts. Use the natural balance of your mind against them. They'll be coming at you off-balance, remember.