THEROUX, Paul

Mosquito Coast

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Charlie : My father was an inventor, a genius with anything mechanical. Nine patents, six pending. He dropped out of Harvard, "to get an education", he said. I grew up with the belief that the world belonged to him, and that everything he said was true.

Allie Fox : Look around ya, how did America get this way? Land of promise, land of opportunity. Give us the wretched refuse of your teeming shores. Have a Coke. Watch TV.

Charlie : Have a nice day.

Allie Fox : Go on welfare. Get free money. Turn to crime - crime pays in this country.

Charlie : [ laughs ]

Allie Fox : Why do they put up with it? Why do they keep coming? Look around you Charlie, this place is a toilet.

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Charlie : My father often talked of things being revealed - that was true invention, he said. Revealing something's use, and magnifying it; discovering its imperfections, improving it, and putting it to work for you. God had left the world incomplete, he said, and it was man's job to understand how it worked, to tinker with it, and to finish it. I think that was why he hated missionaries so much - because they taught people to put up with their earthly burdens. For father, there were no burdens that couldn't be fitted with a set of wheels, or rudders, or a system of pulleys.

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Allie Fox : Look at this place, these are poor people. Look at what they own. Look at what they eat, they don't have meat, but they have asparagus that they cut.

Jerry Fox : I don't think we should be here.

Allie Fox : They welcome visitors, son. It's an old custom of theirs from the jungle. Be kind to strangers they say, you never know when you might be one yourself. That's the law of the jungle.

Charlie : But this isn't the jungle dad.

Allie Fox : No? No, because no jungle is as murderous as this is. They traded green trees for this room. It's pathetic. And it makes me mad, because they're going to end up being part of the problem.

Allie Fox : It would take courage to go there.

Charlie : Go where?

Allie Fox : The jungle. Not ordinary gumption, but 4 o'clock in the morning courage.

[ glancing toward his boys ]

Allie Fox : And who's got that?

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