If an American jumps out of an airplane

”[I]f an American jumps out of an airplane, you can’t sell him a parachute until after he hits the ground. I don’t even flap about it anymore. Americans are manic freaks who slack off suicidally between crises and then work their asses to a bone to meet a crisis after it has bashed them in the face—all the time bitching bitterly that no one ever told them that the fist was on the way. Well, I told them. I was on my knees begging them, for Christ’s sake. That’s the whole story. It’s a mania that will kill us dead one day, and our Constitution besides, that one last crisis too many, but in the meantime it is no use yammering to deaf ears about how to prevent a coming crisis, you just have to be cool and work quietly until you know exactly what to tell them to do after the crisis has them screaming in pain—and hope to God they can get their silly asses in gear as fast as they always have before. Don’t have the parachutes ready! Know all about splints!”