Inherent Vice

by Thomas Pynchon

“Can’t say it often enough—change your hair, change your life.”

“As one who’s been down that particular exit ramp,” Hope advised, “you can only cruise the boulevards of regret so far, and then you’ve got to get back up onto the freeway again.”

“Las Vegas,” he tried to explain, “it sits out here in middle of desert, produces no tangible goods, money flows in, money flows out, nothing is produced. This place should not, according to theory, even exist, let alone prosper as it does. I feel my whole life has been based on illusory premises. I have lost reality.