Tales of the Madman Underground Society and Class Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

That was annoying. Us Madmen didn't associate with each other in public. We didn't need some dumbass football player or one of the jackoff smart kids to come up to us and make bibby-bibby noises with his finger and lip. (3.44)

So, basically, the context for this passage is that Gratz likes to embarrass the Madmen by calling them out at the end of class, like, every single day, which totally blows their cover of pretending not to know each other outside of therapy. By the way, isn't it kind of hypocritical for them to get all up on Karl for wanting to ditch the group when they all ignore each other all the time? Double standard, much?

Quote #5

Bonny was a cheerleader because she did anything that would look good on those college apps—cheerleader, choir solos, Service Club, plus all the science clubs, math team, and chess team, but she wasn't much of a conformist. Today she was looking sort of like Grace Slick or Janis Joplin after a three-year famine. (3.63)

Dang, what is it with all of these Madmen girls managing to land spots on the cheerleading squad? There's something kind of twisted about that when you think about it—Cheryl's and Bonny's lives outside school are pretty dismal, and yet they dress up in little skirts once a week and yell "go team go" while smiling real big. Maybe they're involved with so much stuff because they're trying to convince people they're normal, too.

Quote #6

I guess I could have told Coach Stuckey, but I didn't want to be a nark and a crybaby. I'd have to go away to the State Home for Terminal Pussies with a big P tattooed on my forehead. Besides, who the hell were they going to believe, the popular QB or skinny little Shoemaker whose dad used to be mayor before being the town drunk? Al's dad, who was at every game cheering like a nut, or a spooky ghost like my dad, a dying bundle of sticks and scraggly hair? I knew where I was on the ladder. And where Al was. (4.17-18)

Apparently, being the ex-mayor's kid doesn't score you enough points to earn a solid place on the high school social ladder—especially when that ex-mayor is a drunk and dying. The fact that Karl gets up the guts to take the situation with Al into his own hands is remarkable enough in itself.