Sixteen years like living with a God damned invalid sixteen years every time you come in sitting there waiting just like you left him wave his stick at you, plump up his pillow cut a paragraph add a sentence hold his God damned hand [...] walk down the street God damned sunshine begin to think maybe you'll meet him maybe cleared things up got out by himself come back open the God damned door right there where you left him ...

[...] It employs none of the fictive habits, the prompts and crutches and connective tissue of narrative. Time slips around like an eel. Place is bulldozed. Characters have no identity save for the words they speak and they speak the speakable with tireless abandon. There is no communion, no closure. There are rants. Mad soliloquies. Offended ripostes, offensive parries. Almost everyone accounted for is indignant, baffled, enraged, duplicitous, misunderstood, or misunderstanding. [...]

[...] They are both so miserable and distracted in their marriage that they harbor a flatulent drifter in their home, both thinking he is the other's father. [...]

We are ... swept along. Mr. Gaddis confessed that he wanted us to be, in this flow of unremitting talk -- "might miss a lot but that's what life is, after all? Missing something that's right before you?" His characters can't or won't communicate in any meaningful way. [...]

During all the years he worked on J R, he was dutifully laboring for a paycheck from the corporate machine -- Kodak, Ford, IBM, Pfizer ("an operation of international piracy") -- writing ad copy and position papers [...] He knew the cant of marketing well and was ever alert to systems of speech, of persuasion, of obfuscation, seeing and portraying the American way of waste -- the waste of nature, talent, energy, the waste that markets, systems, management demand for gtowth.

—My book! My book! That’s all we ever hear from you my book, well let me just tell you something that’s to don’t be surprised if somebody else has a book, that’s all. Just don’t be surprised! And she fixed unflinching on the passing gantlet of apartment house existences dismantled and laid out side by side on aprons of grass affording the embattled privacy of city stoops, sheltered by awnings of rippling yellow plastic blazoning heraldic initials in old world black letter, mounting names discreetly hidden a bare year since in the Brooklyn telephone directory on sentry carriage lamps, ships’ lanterns in authentic replica, a livid pastel wagon wheel swooning at a rustic angle, a demented wheelbarrow choked with stalked memories of flowers, a family of metal flamingoes, of ducks, of playful elves, till with a narrow miss for the cast iron potbellied stove painted pink and sporting a naked geranium stem from its lid the car left the pavement.—Just don’t act too surprised.

—Crawley here. What? No, I don’t know what the hell’s going on there nobody does . . . What? no, it’s not just two or three stocks, it’s the whole market . . . do what? Certainly not. If you want to quote me you can say the long overdue technical readjustments taking place in our present dynamic market situation offer no convincing evidence of the sort that has characterized long-term deterioration in past major business downturns. What might appear at this ah, this juncture as conflicting behavior, the conflicting behavior of prevailing economic forces . . . right. Expect a certain leveling off period when . . . right. Right. Any time . . . Shirley? any more papers call tell them I’m out, he finished handing back the phone, turning, —now. These young ladies and gentlemen are here to buy some stock are they?

—Governor Cates is one of the men who opened the frontiers of America as we know it today, Davidoff leaned knuckled under on the expanse of walnut stretched before him, pad, pencils, ashtray, pad, pencils, ashtray,—he . . .
—Him? He was this frontiersman?
—Not like Daniel Boone if that’s what you’re thinking of, no. He opened America’s industrial frontiers, her natural resources that make us the wealthiest country in the world. He’s a man presidents come to for advice, and you can be proud . . .
—Is he rich?
—Well after all, a man who has contributed so greatly to his country’s wealth and power would deserve . . .

—That’s the, must be our last proxy statement Boss a little kit we put together for them on the, boys and girls? We can’t get into too many details now, we just wanted you to meet the topflight managerial talent your directors have working here for you, we’re all here to keep your profits rolling in and even if you just have one share right now any time you think we’ve stepped out of line don’t forget that one share means you can haul us right up on the carpet and . . .
—Don’t need to press that point Dave let’s just get the . . .

A conductor with a wisp mustache stood tapping his punch.—Ticket?
—Ja? He looked up from the paper with a great smile.
—Your ticket?
—Ahh, Sie wollen meine, meine . . . He rummaged in pockets, to come up with a cardboard square and offer it with a beaming smile.
—This is a half fare ticket, Mister.
—Bitte?
—I said this ticket, this is half fare ticket.
—Ja ja . . . he beamed, nodding, his eyes beginning to cross.
—Half fare, half. Kiddie. Child.
—Ja, wissen Sie . . .
—Look. You, man. Ticket, child ticket. Get it?
—In dem Bahnhof, ja, he commenced still beaming, eyes now firmly crossed,—in dem Bahnhof habe ich die . . .
—For Christ sake look. Where you buy ticket?
—Herr Teets, verstehen Sie? In dem Bahnhof, Herr Bahnhofmeister Teets, Gott-trunkener Mensch, verstehen Sie? Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens, he beamed, eyes abruptly straightened,—nicht?
—Oh for Christ sake.
—Bitte? The smile gone, his mouth hung open.
—Forget it. The conductor punched the ticket emphatically and turned up the aisle, abruptly snagged by a hand on his arm.