John Wyndham Quotes

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... after all, what is a planet but an island in space?
John Wyndham Quotes: ... after all, what is
My love's locked up in a frigidaire, And my heart's in a deep-freeze pack. She's gone with a guy, I'd not know where, But she wrote that she'd never come back. Now she don't care for me no more, I'm just a one-man frozen store, And it ain't nice To be on ice With my love locked up in a frigidaire, And my heart in a deep-freeze pack. While
John Wyndham Quotes: My love's locked up in
If you want to keep alive in the jungle, you must live as the jungle does.
John Wyndham Quotes: If you want to keep
novelty is a wonderfully short-lived thing.
John Wyndham Quotes: novelty is a wonderfully short-lived
To deprive a gregarious creature of companionship is to maim it, to outrage its nature. The prisoner and the cenobite are aware that the herd exists beyond their exile; they are an aspect of it. But when the herd no longer exists, there is, for the herd creature, no longer entity, a part of no whole; a freak without a place. If he cannot hold on to his reason, then he is lost indeed; most utterly, most fearfully lost, so that he becomes no more than the twitch in the limb of a corpse.
John Wyndham Quotes: To deprive a gregarious creature
But, as I understand it, your God is a universal God; He is God on all suns and all planets. Surely, then, He must have universal form? Would it not be a staggering vanity to imagine that He can manifest Himself only in the form that is appropriate to this particular, not very important planet?
John Wyndham Quotes: But, as I understand it,
It's not my fault if I'm not any good at things like that." "I'll differ there," Coker told her. "It's not only your fault - it's a self-created fault. Moreover, it's an affectation to consider yourself too spiritual to understand anything mechanical. It is a petty and a very silly form of vanity. Everyone starts by knowing nothing about anything, but God gives him - and even her - brains to find out with. Failure to use them is not a virtue to be praised;
John Wyndham Quotes: It's not my fault if
Personal honesty takes time to assert itself - if it is ever allowed to.
John Wyndham Quotes: Personal honesty takes time to
It's humiliating to be dependent, anyway, but it's still a poorer pass to have no one to depend on.
John Wyndham Quotes: It's humiliating to be dependent,
The humans have a curious force they call ambition. It drives them, and, through them, it drives us. This force which keeps them active, we lack. Perhaps, in time, we machines will acquire it.
John Wyndham Quotes: The humans have a curious
There is an inability to sustain the tragic mood, a phoenix quality of the mind. It may be helpful or harmful, it is just a part of the will to survive - yet, also, it has made it possible for us to engage in one weakening war after another. But it is a necessary part of our mechanism that we should be able to cry only for a time over even an ocean of spilt milk - the spectacular must soon become the commonplace if life is to be supportable.
John Wyndham Quotes: There is an inability to
The dove is not a coward to fear the hawk; it is simply wise.
John Wyndham Quotes: The dove is not a
There must, I think, be a great many people who go around just longing to be baffled ...
John Wyndham Quotes: There must, I think, be
In Oppley they're smart, and in Stouch they're smarmy, but Midwich folk are just plain barmy
John Wyndham Quotes: In Oppley they're smart, and
You can't kill an idea the way they try to. You can keep it down awhile, but sooner or later it'll come out. Now what you've got to understand is that the wheel's not evil. Never mind what the scared men all tell you. no discovery is good or evil until men make it that way. -The Wheel, John Wtndham
John Wyndham Quotes: You can't kill an idea
When almost half a lifetime has been spent in one conception of order, reorientation is no five-minute business.
John Wyndham Quotes: When almost half a lifetime
I was hiding from them even while I moved among them.
John Wyndham Quotes: I was hiding from them
It must be, I thought, one of the race's most persistent and comforting hallucinations to trust that "it can't happen here"
that one's own time and place is beyond cataclysm.
John Wyndham Quotes: It must be, I thought,
As a race, we have allowed ourselves to become accustomed to the idea that the proper way to die is in bed, at a ripe age. It is a delusion. The normal end for all creatures comes suddenly.
John Wyndham Quotes: As a race, we have
Most people [ ... ] prefer to be coaxed or wheedled, or even driven. That way they never make a mistake: if there is one, it's always due to something or somebody else
John Wyndham Quotes: Most people [ ... ]
The clock is the most scared thing in a hospital
John Wyndham Quotes: The clock is the most
Why should they be afraid of us? We aren't hurting them,' she broke in.

"I'm not sure that I know why,' I told her. 'But they are. It's a feel-thing not a think-thing. And the more stupid they are, the more like everyone else they think everyone ought to be. And once they get afraid they become cruel and want to hurt people who are different –
John Wyndham Quotes: Why should they be afraid
We all have our youthful follies, embarassing to recall
but people somehow find it hard to dismiss as a youthful folly anything that has happened to be a financial success.
John Wyndham Quotes: We all have our youthful
They persisted in the face of discouragement until they gained the kind of acceptance accorded to the inevitable.
John Wyndham Quotes: They persisted in the face
I don't think it had ever occurred to me that man's supremacy is not primarily due to his brain, as most of the books would have one think. It is due to the brain's capacity to make use of the information conveyed to it by a narrow band of visible light rays. His civilization, all that he had achieved or might achieve, hung upon his ability to perceive that range of vibrations from red to violet. Without that, he was lost.
John Wyndham Quotes: I don't think it had
Until then I had always thought of loneliness as something negative - an absence of company, and, of course, something temporary ... That day I had learned that it was much more. It was something which could press and oppress, could distort the ordinary and play tricks with the mind. Something which lurked inimically all around, stretching the nerves and twanging them with alarms, never letting one forget that there was no one to help, no one to care. It showed one as an atom adrift in vastness, and it waited all the time its chance to frighten and frighten horribly - that was what loneliness was really trying to do; and that was what one must never let it do ...
John Wyndham Quotes: Until then I had always
Knowing makes all the difference ... It's the difference between just trying to keep alive, and having something to live for
John Wyndham Quotes: Knowing makes all the difference
But not she. Her eternity is an article of her faith. Great wars and disasters can ebb and flow, races rise and fall, empires wither with suffering and death, but these are superficialities: she, woman, is perpetual, essential; she will go on for ever.
John Wyndham Quotes: But not she. Her eternity
Nobody is going to be muddle-headed enough to confuse ignorance with innocence now - it's too important. Nor is ignorance going to be cute or funny anymore. It is going to be dangerous, very dangerous.
John Wyndham Quotes: Nobody is going to be
In loyalty to their kind they cannot tolerate our rise; in loyalty to our kind, we cannot tolerate their obstruction.
They are the crown of creation, they are ambition fulfilled - they have
nowhere more to go. But life is change, that is how it differs from the rocks, change is its very nature
John Wyndham Quotes: In loyalty to their kind
The way I came to miss the end of the world – well, the end of the world I had known for close on thirty years – was sheer accident: like a lot of survival, when you come to think of it.
John Wyndham Quotes: The way I came to
I suppose a book is still a book, even if no one but the author and his wife reads it," she said.
John Wyndham Quotes: I suppose a book is
The clock is the most sacred thing in a hospital
John Wyndham Quotes: The clock is the most
The Old People brought down Tribulation, and were broken into fragments by it. Your father and his kind are a part of those fragments. They have become history without being aware of it. They are determined still that there is a final form to defend: soon they will attain the stability they strive for, in the only form it is granted - a place among the fossils.
John Wyndham Quotes: The Old People brought down
Half the political intelligentsia who talk to a working audience don't get the value of their stuff across - not so much because they're over their audience's heads, as because half the chaps are listening to the voice and not to the words, so they knock a big discount off what they do hear because it's all a bit fancy, and not like ordinary, normal talk.
John Wyndham Quotes: Half the political intelligentsia who
Knowledge is simply a kind of fuel; it needs the motor of understanding to convert it into power.
John Wyndham Quotes: Knowledge is simply a kind
It was all conveyed by the nicest, almost indetectably refined blend of sympathy and bitchiness ...
John Wyndham Quotes: It was all conveyed by
There was often a great deal of grown-up fuss that seemed disproportionate to causes.
John Wyndham Quotes: There was often a great
The Sunday Tidings, which had for some years been pursing a policy of intellectual sensationalism, had never found it easy to maintain its supply of material. The stuff of mere emotional sensationalism, as used by its cheaper and less dignified contemporaries, lay thickly all around, easily malleable into shapes attractive to the constant human passions. Intellectual sensationalism, however, was a much more tricky business. In addition to avoiding the suggestion of sensationalism for sensationalism's sake, it required knowledge, research, careful timing, and, if possible, some literary ability. Inevitably, therefore, its policy was subject to lamentable gaps during which it could find nothing topical on its chosen level to disclose.
John Wyndham Quotes: The Sunday Tidings, which had
Failure.
That is a word so little to our taste that many think it a virtue to claim that they never admit it. But blind stupidity is not one of the virtues; it is a weakness ...
John Wyndham Quotes: Failure.<br>That is a word so
Sophie dear,' I said. 'Are you in love with him - with this spider-man?'
'Oh, don't call him that - please - we can't any of us help being what we are. His name's Gordon. He's kind to me, David. He's fond of me. You've got to have as little as I have to know how much that means. You've never known loneliness. You can't understand the awful emptiness that's waiting all round us here. I'd have given him babies gladly, if I could ... I - oh, why do they do that to us? Why didn't they kill me? It would have been kinder than this ... '
She sat without a sound. The tears squeezed out from under the closed lids and ran down her face. I took her hand between my own.
I remembered watching. The man with his arm linked in the woman's, the small figure on top of the pack-horse waving back to me as they disappeared into the trees. Myself desolate, a kiss still damp on my
cheek, a lock tied with a yellow ribbon in my hand. I looked at her now, and my heart ached.
John Wyndham Quotes: Sophie dear,' I said. 'Are
There is no conception more fallacious than the sense of cosiness implied by "Mother Nature". Each species must strive to survive, and that it will do, by every means in its power, however foul - unless the instinct to survive is weakened by conflict with another instinct.
John Wyndham Quotes: There is no conception more
When I was quite small I would sometimes dream of a city - which was strange, because it began before I even knew what a city was.
John Wyndham Quotes: When I was quite small
Babies, in a world that already has far too many, remain desirable.
John Wyndham Quotes: Babies, in a world that
I'm not romancing. I'm talking about the inevitable time when, unless we do something to stop it, men will be hunting men through the ruins, for food. We're letting it drift towards that, with an evil irresponsibility, because with our ordinary short lives we shan't be here to see it. Does our generation care about the misery it is bequeathing? Not it. "That's their worry," we say. "Damn our children's children; we're all right.
John Wyndham Quotes: I'm not romancing. I'm talking
Why should I? I've done nothing to be ashamed of. I am not ashamed - I am only beaten
John Wyndham Quotes: Why should I? I've done
Among the other papers I bought at London Airport was the current number of The Beholder. Thought it is, I am aware, not without its merits and even well thought of in some circles, it leaves me with an abiding sense that it is more given to expressing its first prejudices than its second thoughts. Perhaps if it were to go to press a day later ...
John Wyndham Quotes: Among the other papers I
The only sounds in the cave were the hopeless, abandoned sobbing, and plop-plop-plop of the drips.
Petra looked at us, then at the figure on the bed, then at us again, expectantly. When neither of us moved she appeared to decide that the initiative lay with her. She crossed to the bedside and knelt down concernedly beside it. Tentatively she put a hand on the dark hair.
'Don't,' she said. 'Please don't.'
There was a startled catch in the sobbing. A pause, then a brown arm reached out round Petra's shoulders. The sound became a little less desolate ... it no longer tore at one's heart: but it left it
bruised and aching..
John Wyndham Quotes: The only sounds in the
We have both been given the same wish to survive, We are all, you see, toys of the life-force. It made you numerically stronger, but mentally undeveloped. It made us mentally strong but physically weak: now it has set us at one another, to see what will happen. A cruel sport perhaps, from both our points of view, but a very very old one. Cruelty is as old as life itself. There is some improvement: humour and compassion are the most important of human inventions; but they are not very firmly established yet, though promising well. But the life-force is a lot stronger than they are; and it won't be denied its blood-sports.
John Wyndham Quotes: We have both been given
The definition of Man recited itself in my head ...
And God created man in His own image. And God decreed that man should have one body, one head, two arms and two legs: that each arm should be joined in two places and end in one hand: that each hand should have four fingers and one thumb: that each finger should bear a flat finger-nail ... Then God created woman, also, in the same image, but with these differences, according to her nature: her voice would be of higher pitch than man's: she should grow no beard: she should have two breasts ...
And any creature that shall seem to be human, but is not formed thus is not human. It is neither man, nor woman. It is a blasphemy against the true image of God, and hateful in the sight of God.
John Wyndham Quotes: The definition of Man recited
Something entirely unexpected happened to Bert. Yesterday he had seen her as a child grown up, today it was different. There was a pain in his chest and a hammering, the skin on his temples felt oddly tight, his hand trembled so that he almost dropped the bar he was holding. He leaned back against the wheel, staring at her but unable to speak. A long time seemed to pass before he could say anything, and the words sounded clumsy in his own ears. What
John Wyndham Quotes: Something entirely unexpected happened to
A sort of botanical glory-hole
John Wyndham Quotes: A sort of botanical glory-hole
You don't seriously suggest that thet're talking when they make that rattling noise.
John Wyndham Quotes: You don't seriously suggest that
We are not shut away into individual cages from which we can reach out only with inadequate words.
John Wyndham Quotes: We are not shut away
The simple rely on a bolstering mass of maxim and precept, so do the timid, so do the mentally lazy – and so do all of us, more than we imagine.
John Wyndham Quotes: The simple rely on a
We are explorers. We are at present, as far as we know, the only explorers of the universe. For a long time we thought that ours was the only planet that could support life. Then we found others that could – a few. For still longer we thought we were unique – the only intelligent form of life – a single, freakish pinpoint of reason in a vast, adventitious cosmos – utterly lonely in the horrid wastes of space.… Again we discovered we were mistaken…

But intelligent life is rare… very rare indeed… the rarest thing in creation…

But the most precious…

For intelligent life is the only thing that gives meaning to the universe. It is a holy thing, to be fostered and treasured.

Without it nothing begins, nothing ends, there can be nothing through all eternity but the mindless babblings of chaos…

Therefore, the nurture of all intelligent forms is a sacred duty. Even the merest spark of reason must be fanned in the hope of a flame. Frustrated intelligence must have its bonds broken. Narrow-channelled intelligence must be given the power to widen out. High intelligence must be learned from. That is why I have stayed here.
John Wyndham Quotes: We are explorers. We are
My protective coloration isn't intended to deceive you, my sweet. It is intended to deceive me.
John Wyndham Quotes: My protective coloration isn't intended
I don't feel quite so lightly about it," I admitted. "But I'm not sure that that's virtue - it's more likely merely habit. And an obstinate refusal to face facts isn't going to bring anything back, or help us at all. I think we'll have to try to see ourselves not as the robbers of all this but more as - well, the unwilling heirs to it." "Yes. I suppose it is - something like that," she agreed in a qualified way. She
John Wyndham Quotes: I don't feel quite so
Anybody who has had a great treasure has always led a precarious existence.
John Wyndham Quotes: Anybody who has had a
Marvelously clear-fretted in the unsmoked air, the Abbey rose, silver-grey. It stood detached by the serenity of age from the ephemeral growths around it. It was solid on a foundation of centuries, destined, perhaps, for centuries yet to preserve within it the monuments to those whose work was now all destroyed. I did not loiter there. In years to come I expect some will go o look at the old Abbey with romantic melancholy. But romance of that kind is an alloy of tragedy with retrospect. I was too close.
John Wyndham Quotes: Marvelously clear-fretted in the unsmoked
So you're in love with her?' she went on.
A word again ... When the minds have learnt to mingle, when no thought is wholly one's own, and each has taken too much of the other ever to be entirely himself alone; when one has reached the beginning of seeing with a single eye, loving with a single heart, enjoying with a single joy; when there can be moments of identity and nothing is separate save bodies that long for one another ... When there is that, where is the word? There is only the inadequacy of the word that exists.
'We love one another,' I said.
John Wyndham Quotes: So you're in love with
In temperate countries, where man had succeeded in putting most forms of nature save his own under a reasonable degree of restraint, the status of the triffid was thus made quite clear. But in the tropics, particularly in the dense forest areas, they quickly became a scourge.
John Wyndham Quotes: In temperate countries, where man
There they sit, with everyone thinking no more of them than they might of a pretty odd lot of cabbages, yet half the time they're pattering and clattering away at one another. Why? What is it they patter about? That's what I want to know.' I
John Wyndham Quotes: There they sit, with everyone
It seemed to me an odd view to take - rather as if one should protest that one didn't LIKE the idea of dying or being born. I preferred the notion of finding out first how it would be, and then doing what one could about the parts of it one disliked most.
John Wyndham Quotes: It seemed to me an
The thinking has to be done largely by people who are not directly productive - by people who appear to be living almost entirely on the work of others, but are, in fact, a long-term investment. Learning grew up in the cities, and in great institutions - it was the labor of the countryside that supported them.
John Wyndham Quotes: The thinking has to be
You know, one of the most shocking things about it is to realize how easily we have lost a world that seemed so safe and certain."

She was quite right. It was that simplicity that seemed somehow to be the nucleus of the shock. From very familiarity one forgets all the forces which keep the balance, and thinks of security as normal. It is not.
John Wyndham Quotes: You know, one of the
The more complex they made their world, the less capable they were of dealing with it. They had no means of consensus. They learnt to co-operate constructively in small units; but only destructively in large units. They aspired greedily, and then refused to face the responsibilities they had created. They created vast problems, and then buried their heads in the sands of idle faith.
John Wyndham Quotes: The more complex they made
And again there are no words.
Words exist that can, used by a poet, achieve a dim monochrome of the body's love, but beyond that they fail clumsily.
My love flowed out to her, hers back to me. Mine stroked and soothed. Hers caressed. The distance - and the difference - between us dwindled and vanished. We could meet, mingle, and blend. Neither one of us existed any more; for a time there was a single being that was both. There was escape from the solitary cell; a brief symbiosis, sharing all the word ...
John Wyndham Quotes: And again there are no
Some quotations," said Zellaby, "are greatly improved by lack of context.
John Wyndham Quotes: Some quotations,
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