How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph) or (Feed Chatter #.Paragraph)
Quote #1
We went out to this place that Marty said served the best electrolyte chunkies, but it had closed a year before. It was dinnertime, so we had dinner at a J.P. Barnum's Family Extravaganza, which was pretty good, and just like the one at home. We got some potato skins for appetizers. (2.5)
Bummer. The hot local restaurant has shut down, so the kids have to go to Applebee's instead—we mean, they have to go to J.P. Barnum's Family Extravaganza instead. (Totally different.) Titus and his friends even order something yawningly boring, like potato skins. This is one of the examples of Violet's point that people's tastes are becoming more streamlined, and people are becoming more alike. It also shows that, just like now, potato skins are delicious in the future.
Quote #2
Computers were all outside the body. They carried them around outside of them, in their hands, like if you carried your lungs in a briefcase and opened it to breathe. (10.2)
LOLOLOL computers used be to outside the body! Hilarious, right? Think about this next time you laugh at your dad's old Nokia brick. But seriously: Titus thinks this is more shocking than hilarious, because has a hard time imagining the system not being an integral part of his body. For him, the feed is as vital as the most vital of organs.
Quote #3
That's one of the great things about the feed--that you can be supersmart without ever working. Everyone is supersmart now. You can look things up automatic, like science and history, like if you want to know which battles of the Civil War George Washington fought in and s***. (10.3)
*Ree Rah* *Ree Rah* Hear that? It's the Major Satire Alert alarm. And it's not Just a Test, people. What Titus is saying here is super satirical, because the people in his world are not supersmart at all. (Evidence: George Washington never fought in the Civil War. Wiki it.) In fact, they don't even have to think for themselves most of the time. Instead of making them supersmart, the feed has actually made everyone super… well, dumb.
Quote #4
We had a party at the end of the week over at Quendy's, because her parents were off choking somewhere. That was when everyone was having those choking parties. I mean, it was completely midlife crisis. (18.9)
Look, we're not going to link to it, but every so often parents get all panicky about so-called "choking parties" among kids, because apparently choking yourself, or being choked, makes you kind of feel like you're high. (We wouldn't know, because that sounds incredibly dumb.) But the point is, Titus's parents can't even have a respectable midlife crisis by, like, buying cars or having affairs. Instead, they go out and act like the worst kind of teenagers.
Quote #5
The mall was really busy, there were a lot of crowds there. They were buying all this stuff, like the inflatable houses for their kids, and the dog massagers, and the tooth extensions that people were wearing, the white ones which you slid over your real teeth and they made your mouth just like one big single tooth going all the way across. (22.4)
Quote #6
Violet was standing near the fountain and she had a real low shirt on, to show off her lesion, because the stars of Oh? Wow! Thing! Had started to get lesions, so now people were thinking better about lesions, and lesions even looked kind of cool. (22.5)
Remember how in the beginning of the book the kids thought the lesions were kind of icky? Now that the stars of their favorite shows sport them, they're just fine. Thanks, feed! Eventually, the feed convinces the kids that lesions are so cool that they actually mimic them. Even our rebel Violet does it. Talk about the power of marketing!
Quote #7
"They're also waiting to make you want things. Everything we've grown up with—the stories on the feed, the games, all of that--it's all streamlining our personalities so we're easier to sell to. I mean, they do these demographic studies that divide everyone up into a few personality types, and then you get ads based on what you're supposedly like. They try to figure out who you are, and to make you conform to one of their types for easy marketing. It's like a spiral: They keep making everything more basic so it will appeal to everyone. And gradually, everyone gets used to everything being basic, so we get less and less varied as people, more simple. So the corps make everything even simpler. And it goes on and on." (22.12)
Violet nails it. The corporations like things easy, and they like to be able to standardize their products, which makes it easier to sell things (and cheaper, too!). Eventually, people will take what's offered and their tastes will start to converge on that basis. Think about McDonald's. There's a reason they have the same menu items, whether you're in New York City, or in Toad Suck, Arkansas. And yes—there really is such a place. Maybe one day you'll even be able to buy your Big Mac on the moon.
Quote #8
I didn't know how close she was to the person who had gone completely fugue at the party. (39.32)
Violet certainly did appear to be a different person when she lost it and yelled out that Quendy was a monster, so Violet isn't even sure whether he's dealing with the cray Violet, or the normal Violet. But which Violet is the real one, anyway? And—brace yourselves for some philosophizing—who is the real "you" if you have a constant stream of advertising pouring through your head?
Quote #9
I want to dance. You know? That's this dumbass thing, because it's so cliché, but that's what I see myself doing. I want to dance with like a whole lacrosse team, maybe with them holding me up on a Formica tabletop. I can't even tell you. I want to do the things that show you're alive. I want to eat huge meals with wine. I want to go to the zoo with you.
[...]
Everything I think of when I think of really living, living to the full—all my ideas are just the opening credits of sitcoms. See what I mean? My idea of life, it's what happens when they're rolling the credits. My god. What am I, without the feed? (40.15, 23)
Violet may resist the feed but she's not immune to it. Her bucket list is nothing more than clichéd scenes straight out of a movie montage, and she knows it: she feels like she's not expressing something that's truly from within her. Her desire to dance "with a whole lacrosse team" sounds a meg cheesy musical—but admit it: we all think life would be better with a soundtrack.
Quote #10
I'm afraid of silence. I'm afraid my memory will go soon. When I try to think about that year that disappeared, from six to seven, it's nothing. I mean, I can't remember anything. I can remember remembering, but I can't remember anything that happened to me right before I got the feed. I'm afraid I'm going to lose my past. Who are we, if we don't have a past? (51.3)
Here, Violet is expressing her fear that she's lost something vital with the memories of her childhood. The point she's making here is that identity is built on memories and experiences. Without those, who is she? If you can't remember your fourth grade BFF, are you still really you?