Pat Frank Quotes

A man who has been shaken by a two-ton blockbuster has a frame of reference. He can equate the impact of an H-bomb with his own experience, even though the H-bomb blast is a million times more powerful than the shock he endured. To someone who has never felt a bomb, bomb is only a word. An H-bomb's fireball is something you see on television. It is not something that incinerates you to a cinder in the thousandth part of a second. So the H-bomb is beyond the imagination of all but a few Americans, while the British, Germans, and Japanese can comprehend it, if vaguely. And only the Japanese have personal understanding of atomic heat and radiation.

There's an old saying that anyone can make colonel on his own, but it takes a wife to make a general.

If Man retained faith in God, he might also retain faith in Man.

'I think you ought to go to New York or Chicago or San Francisco or any city with character and vitality. You should go to work. This place is no good for you, Randy. The air is like soup and the people are like noodles. You're vegetating. I don't want a vegetable. I want a man.' - Lib McGovern

I don't want money. What the hell's money good for? You can't drive it and you can't eat it and it won't even fix a flat.

When he reached the last hole he saw, far to the west, a series of rockets bloom in the sky. He watched their green and yellow and red petals arch across the horizon, and fade into the gloom of the earth. It was very beautiful, but he recognized them for Chinese rockets.

How can we cash out-of-town checks when don't know whether a town's still there?

'Legs are for men's pleasure, breasts are for babies'.' - Lib McGovern

It was a surprise, and a delight, to see children devour books. Without ever knowing it, they were receiving an education.

Out of death, life; an immutable truth

Randy felt relieved. He looked out over the river, contemplating his ignorance of women and the peace of evening.

The house was still as northern woods in winter, when all the creatures are gone.

Whatever it is out there, is better equipped than you are. It can see better and hear better and smell better. All you're got on it is brains. Your only chance of getting it is

He was tough as an antique ivory figurine, which has withstood the viscissitudes of centuries and can accept more.

[He was disgusted] at the beasts who in callous cruelty had dragged down and maimed and destroyed the human dignity of this selfless man. Yet it was nothing new. It had been like this at some point in every civilization and on every continent. There were human jackals for every human disaster.

His ears were attuned for the steady firing of Couzens' heavy machine guns, which he knew should now commence, and the thud of his carefully sited mortars, but he did not hear them and he realized, suddenly and sickeningly, that the Chinese had not attacked across the spit of land. They were pouring across the ice, and had taken Dog Company in the rear.