How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph) or (Feed Chatter #.Paragraph)
Quote #1
You need the noise of your friends in space. (1.5)
Space is quiet and empty. Titus' mind—without the feed—is quiet and empty. No wonder he feels like he needs the noise of his friends in space. But really, don't we all? Having friends around reminds us who we are, whether we're on the moon or in a new school.
Quote #2
I feel real sorry for people who have to travel by themselves. In space, that must suck. When you're going places with other people, with this big group, everyone is leaning toward each other, and people are laughing and they're chatting, and things are great, and it's just like in a commercial for jeans, or something with nougat. (1.6)
Of course Titus compares the experience of friendship to a commercial for jeans: advertisements—or movies and TV shows packed so full of stuff that might as well be advertisements—are his only frame of reference for how life should be.
Quote #3
And we're this trio, the three of us guys, being like, total guys, which usually makes people let us in and give us beer. (2.6)
Apparently, our trio here are meg fun, and give off some kind of vibe that makes people want to hang with them, and give them stuff. Must be the Cheerleader Effect.
Quote #4
None of us could get the tune of "I'll Sex You In" out of our heads. Someone kept starting it up, and then the others would swear and tell them to shut up. Then we couldn't help ourselves, and we'd start to tap it out on our trays with a spork. (12.2)
Kids of the future: they're just like us! We've all had the experience of not being able to get an annoying earworm out of our heads, or being in a group of friends that can't stop singing the latest hit. Point is, Titus might not have the best understanding of friendship—but on the outside, his relationships look a lot (a scary lot) like ours.
Quote #5
It was the beginning of a great day, one of the greatest days of my life. We all played the dart game, and we laughed and sang "I'll Sex You In." Everyone was smiling and it was skip. (14.3).
This is one of the best days in Titus's life… and he's still disconnected from the feed. Turns out, without that constant stream of media and info running through their heads, these kids are still capable of forming deeper connections with those around then. Maybe there's hope for the future after all.
Quote #6
"Doesn't your hand get all cramped up?" I asked. "Don't you end up like, hook-hand?" I made hook-hand. She made hook-hand. We pawed each other with hook-hand. (16.31)
Aw. Just two kids being goofy. After all, if you can't paw at your friends with hook-hand, who can you paw at?
Quote #7
It's times like this that I'm real glad I have friends. They say friends are worth your weight in gold. (18.8)
Titus right now is hanging out with his friends only on the feed—not in person, like when they were all having such a good time in the hospital on the moon. So that's one thing. But the really creepy thing here is that he says friends are worth "worth your weight in gold," when the expression is usually "worth their weight in gold." It seems like, in Feed, even friends end up being about you.
Quote #8
This was this meg good place, because only Link's best friends, we were the only ones that knew about it. We would be up here, all together, and people who weren't his good friends, they'd be walking around downstairs, and we could hear them, and we'd be laughing our asses off. (36.31)
Getting to hide upstairs at Link's house is a sign that you've "arrived," you lucky son-of-a-gun. Notice how "best friends" don't get special access to, say, Link's thoughts and feelings; they get special access to his house. Ah, the privileges of intimacy.
Quote #9
I want to go on rides. The flume, the teacups, the Tilt-a-Whirl? You know, a big bunch of us on the teacups, with you and me crushed together from the centrifugal force. (40.17)
Violet's wish to have a big group of kids head off to an amusement park seems like something straight out of a Disneyland commercial—and it also shows us her need to be accepted and liked. Remember: the whole reason she went to the moon in the first place was to get to see for once how most kids lived. She may be a rebel, but she's a lonely teenager first.
Quote #10
"Why don't you go back to your friends, the ones who teased her?" (57.48)
Violet's dad reminds us that friendship isn't all throwing hypodermic needles at anatomical models and singing "I'll Sex You In." It often has a dark side, and that dark side is being an outcast. What do you think of the way Titus's friends sometime treat Violet? Do you think he should have stuck up for her more?