Player Piano

by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

“In order to get what we’ve got, Anita, we have, in effect, traded these people out of what was the most important thing on earth to them—the feeling of being needed and useful, the foundation of self-respect.”

“Utterly and always happy. And my husband says somebody’s just got to be maladjusted; that somebody’s got to be uncomfortable enough to wonder where people are, where they’re going, and why they’re going there.

“Anybody that competes with slaves becomes a slave,” said Harrison thickly, and he left.