Quotes:

Page 2: We Bokononists believe that humanity is organized into teams, teams that do God’s will
without ever discovering what they are doing.
What is the meaning of our existence? Let us find out.
Page 2: God created the karass. By that he means that a karass ignores national, institutional,
occupational, familial, and class boundaries.
We are all human beings. What is the point for grouping based on unnecessary groups?
Page 5: She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what god is doing.
No one can understand the will of god, if there ever is one.
Page 5: the first sentence in the book of Bokonon is this: “all of the things I am about to tell you
are shameless lies.
This as we will see, is the main theme of the story. How can we use lies to improve the
meaning of our life?
Page 12: see? See? See? He asked. Cat’s cradle. See the cat’s cradle? See where the nice
pussycat sleeps? Meow. Meow.
Everything creation are just man made to unfuck themselves. There is no objective
meaning. Where can I see the cat? Where is the cradle. As I look closely, I see nothing but chaos.
Page 17: [after the bomb is invented] a scientist turned to father and said science has now know
sin. And you know what father said? He said, what is sin?
I am always confused about the father. Does he know life has no meaning so that there is
no moral responsibility. Or he believe that there is an objective meaning to seek the truth? I think
he believes that there is no meaning. This is why he does not care at all. All he wants is to do fun
stuff.
Page 24: the trouble with the world was, that people were still superstitious instead of scientific.
If everybody would study science more, there wouldn’t be all the trouble there was.
At later in the book we can see that this is simply not true. What is more important is the
sense of moral. Sense of rationality. Just follow the science would create as we said before, sin.
The trouble was caused by irrationality.
Page 41: Nothing generous about it. New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth.
The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.
This is the point Bokononist would against. For everything is empty. We cannot become
richer for there is no rich to begin with.
Page 68: [on Hoenikker] sometimes I wonder if he wasn’t born dead. I never met a man who was
less interested in the living. Sometimes I think that’s the trouble with the world: too many people
in high places who are stone-cold dead.
Those people who are too smart realized that world has no meaning so that there is no
moral responsibility. So they just do what they want to do. develop weapon for the sake of fun.
This sense of meaninglessness caused many problems happened in the world.
Page 91: Hazel’s obsession with Hoosiers around the world was a textbook example of a false
karass, of a seeming team that was meaningless in terms of the way god gets things done, a
textbook example of what Bokonon calls a granfalloon.
Hazel feels proud for those famous people that is from the same town. But why? What
makes their success part of hers?
Page 97: Americans couldn’t imagine what it was like to be something else, to be something else
and proud of it.
The society’s power has become so strong that people fail to see the alternative.
Page 97: Minton’s wife: American are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in
places it can never be.
We are all heading in the wrong direction. We should come up with different set of plans
to see what is best for the whole humanity.
Page: 127: I wanted all things, to seem to make some sense, so we all could be happy, yes,
instead of tense. And I made up lies, so that they all fit nice, and I made this sad world, a par-a-
dise.
As we shall see later, because people believing in these lies, it makes them ignores the
fact that the city is poor, they have a goal to chase.
Page 135: Bokonon’s avocation (hobby) is being alive. His principal occupation as being dead.
Page 149: chapter 68. The hundred martyrs to Democracy was the idea that they send 100 men to
fight Germany and Japan. Just when they sent the ship it was attack by a Germany ship.
This is absurd. They are celebrate something that is did no good.
Page 165: Newt: no wander kids grow up crazy. A cat’s cradle is nothing but a bunch of X’s
between somebody’s hand, and little kids loo and look and look at all those X’s. John: and?
Newt: no daman cat, and no damn cradle.
Human beings using talent to create things we think is meaningful. But if we look
closely, there is no damn thing.
Page 169: Castle: man is bile and man makes nothing worth making, knows nothing worth
knowing.
 For there nothing worth to begin with. There are no objective values
Page 169: and then the saint marched to Newt’s painting and took it from its easel. He beamed at
us all. Garbage, like everything else.
Page 172: when it became evident that no governmental or economic reform was going to make
the people much less miserable, the religion became the one real instrument of hope. Truth was
the enemy of the people, because the truth was so terrible, so Bokonon made it his business to
provide with better and better lies.
The outlaw of Bokonon was to give the citizens some to believe. It makes people happy
and ignore the fact that they are suffering. Another sense is that the truth is that life is
meaningless, so they have to make up stuff to make them believe that there are actual meaning of
life even though they know it is false. Thus, the religion is based on harmless lies. In the sense
that people need them.
Page 182: tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; man got to sit and wonder, why, why, why? Tiger got
to sleep, bird got to land; man got to tell himself he understand.
Man wants a purpose. His rationality urges him to understand the meaning of existence.
But what is the point of all of this? What in the end does he understand?
Page 190: I learned some things, but they were scarcely helpful. I learned of the Bokononist
cosmogony, for instance, wherein Borasisi, the sun, held Pabu, the moon, in his arms and hoped
that pabu would bear him a fiery child. But poor pabu gave birth to children that were cold, that
did not burn; and borasisi threw them away in disgust. These were the planets, who circled their
terrible father at a safe distance. The poor Pabu herself was cast away, and she went to libe with
her favorite because it had people on it; and the people looked up at her and loved her and
sympathized.
Bokonoist knows that these are lies. As he said, a pack of foma! This cosmogony shows
that the earth is special. In a sense that it again meaning to the meaningless world. This is a lie
also shows that we are in no sense special. We are just some creature who happens to be here.
Page 198: Maturity (growing up), Bokonon tells us, is a better disappointment for which no
remedy (treatment) exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.
More knowledge, more understanding of the world does not make things better. It make
things worth, the more we know the more we want to understand. We cannot understand it. We
cannot find answer to everything. All we can do is laugh at it.
Page 211: what is sacred to Bokononists? I asked after a while. “not even god, as near as I can
tell.” “Nothing?” “just one thing.” I made some guesses, the ocean? The sun? “man,” said Frank.
“that’s all. Just man”
For everything is manmade. The knowledge of god is the knowledge of man. Everything
is created by man due to the lack of meaning. At the same time, everything can be destroyed by
the lack of meaning. This is why that man is sacred. It is the creator and the destroyer.
Pahe 218: Papa: he (Bokonon) teaches the people lies and lies and lies. Kill him and teach the
people truth. Science is magic that works.
It is clear that in here Papa is telling lies. For he is also a bokononist. He knows that lies
can help people and the truth is scary. Science works but without moral, it is merely destroys
everything.
Page 220: God made mud. God got lonesome. So god said to some of the mud, sit up! See all
I’ve made, said god, the hills, the sea, the sky, the starts. And I was some of the mud that god to
sit up and look around. Lucky me, lucky mud. I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job god had
done. Nice going, god! Nobody but you could have done it, god! I certainly couldn’t have. I feel
very unimportant compared to you. The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of
all the mud that didn’t even get to sit up and look around. I got so much, and most mud got so
little. Thank you for the honor! Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep, what memories for
mud to have! what interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met! I loved everything I saw!
Good night.
In here, the god represents the origin of the universe. The first nothing became
something. The mud represents the lives. We are so unimportant as we are made out of mud. In
here can be represented as atoms. However, we are also lucky for not all things get a chance to
have life to see around. This in a sense make us more important than other ones. We should be
glad that we had this experience.
Page 234: the people of San Lorenzo, the father told me, are interested in only three things:
fishing, fornication, and Bokononism.
Food, reproduction, religion. These three things are all men need.
Page 245: and I remembered The Fourteenth Book of Bokonon, which is entitled, what can a
thoughtful man hope for mankind on earth given the experience of the past million years? It
doesn’t take long to read the fourteenth book. It consists of one word and a period. This is it:
nothing.
There is nothing better to hope for. Better technology, living condition and so on does not
change the meaningless of mankind. That is why the people only interested in those three things.
What is the point of science? All I need is my beliefs.
Page 252: History! writes Bokonon, read it and weep (cry)
It’s sad, so sad, it’s a sad sad situation.
Page 254: and I propose to you that if we are to pay our sincere respects to the hundred lost
children of San Lorenzo, that we might best spend the day despising what killed them; which is
to say, the stupidity and viciousness of all mankind.
What killed all those children is the stupidity of humanity. Children were merely tools
used by the country. There is no difference between one soldier kill in a country and another in
another country. They are all part of humanity. All human beings are from the same Karss. That
is, they are all working towards the same goal. How to live a flushing life in the meaningless
world.
Page 256: for one’s country, any country at all. This wreath I bring is a gift from the people of
one country to the people of another. Never mind which countries. Think of people, and children
murdered in war, and any country at all. Think of peace, think of brotherly love, think of plenty,
think of what a paradise this world would be if men were kind and wise.
Again, we should not draw the meaningless borders based on country, race, and sex. We
should not treat them differently. No matter what they have done, they are part of the same
group.
Page 265: in the beginning, god created the earth, and he looked upon it in his cosmic loneliness.
And god said, let us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what we have done.
And god created everything living creature that now moveth and one was man. Mud as man
alone could speak. God learned close as mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man
blinked. What is the purpose of all this? He asked politely. Everything must have a purpose?
Asked god. Certainly, said man. Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this, said god. And
he went away.
God, or the origin of all things created things randomly. There is no sense of meaning. It
is man’s job to find purpose.
Page 270: someday, someday, this crazy world will have to end, and our god will take things
back that he to us did lend. And if on that sad day, you want to scold our god, why go right ahead
and scold him. He will just mile and nod.
God did not create this world for us. God did not create the world because of us. the
punishment is all manmade.
Page 281: beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no
wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having
come by their ignorance the hard way.
Learning things and wisdom are somewhat different. Wisdom requires responsibility.
Those who tries hard and want to find the answer for the sake of answer then find out there is no
answer got mad about the society. Yet he did not realize that all people are feeling the same way.

Symbol:
1. Bokononism: the main idea of this religion is to build up harmless lies for people to
believe. They have an interesting theory of how universe was created even though they
know it is a lie. When they want to communicate with each other, they rub their feet, as
they say, sole to sole (soul to soul). All these funny ideas represent one thing. That these
bullshit make us happy even though they are bullshit. And we in some sense need them.
In the country, even though people are not wealth and the living condition is poor, yet
 their religion helped them to forget about all the poor conditions. They are always in the
flow of believing. This leads to the discussion of cat’s cradle that what is the Bokononism
in real life? Is our theory of everything just another lies that make us happy?
2. Cat’s cradle: the game cat’s cradle uses strings to make up lines, then we call it cat’s
cradle. But if we look closely, there is not cat, there is no cradle. This is why Newt said
that no wonder that some child become crazy. They believe things with certainty, when
they look closely, they have found nothing.
It is clear to me that human being want a meaning. Man trying to understand why, why,
why. The problem is really that how can we live? Should we rely on Bokononism?
3. Ice-nine: the goal of the book is to show that science is not the key to better human life.
from the example of doctor we can see that those who with only knowledge, only destroy
the world. What is important is the sense of morals. We cannot just develop all science
just for fun. If god is dead, and all the foundation is lost, we have to find our own
foundation and then justify our moral system. The key is responsibility.
On God is dead: