Gregory Benford Quotes

When in enough doubt, let your subconscious work on the problem.

In its studies and learned colloquy, Faz saw and felt the tales of Men. They seemed curiously convoluted, revolving about Self. What mattered most to those who loved tales was how they concluded. Yet all Men knew how each ended. Their little dreams were rounded with a sleep.
So the point of a tale was not how it ended, but what it meant. The great inspiring epic rage of Man was to find that lesson, buried in a grave.

That was what drew him to mathematics. Not because it was rarefied, but because it probed to the subtle, deeper reality. People said that mathematicians were unworldly, and yammered on about how Einstein couldn’t make correct change. Nonsense. Einstein just didn’t give a damn. It was the subtle, the beautiful that concerned him.

That mood had persisted when she finally got home and, unable to sleep, watched some TV. It was as usual, a cacophony, which combined with the other audio media gave a disposable pop culture that made every moment but the present seem quaint, bloodless, dead.

They will do anything for the worker, except become one.

In popularizing a scientific development it was always crucial to sail the narrow strait between the Scylla of professional contempt and the Charybdis of public befuddlement.

He’s an order of magnitude better than mere diplomats. He’s a conniver.

I think," Jordin said mildly, "a professional biologist would label that aggressive behavior.

While politicians wrangled on the front pages of our newspapers, quiet revolutions looked within. Only occasionally did the news I thought most notable make the front page. All of it hinged on the steady building of connections which marks modern science.

Still, Claire hated Charlotte Brontë’s comment that she would have given all her talent to be beautiful. That condemned you always to play somebody else’s game—and, when your looks failed—finally to lose.

The ship of theory could set sail on tides of mathematical grandeur and hope alone, but only data could fill its sails.

Anyway, the Shanna woman was abrasive, self-obsessed, smug—and those were her good points. Julia suspected that in a pinch the woman might also be careless, the one sin reality never forgave.

Government doesn’t often move quickly, but when they do, it’s like an elephant stampede.

The desire to find something could provoke what she called “wantum mechanics,” fishing a result out of nothing but noise.

Media bloomed with florid discussions between completely uninformed people about every detail imaginable.