Gregory Benford Quotes

Science is about continuity of ideas, a web of connections.

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.

She needed some fresh illumination, all right, but not the kind that comes through the west window of a church.

She had once looked up the term ‘lawyer’ and found it was someone who helped you fight laws.

To believe anything so far-fetched, I’d have to see a solid calculation.

Definitions, her grandmother once said, had to be like a fat man’s belt—big enough to cover the subject but elastic enough to allow for change.

A rich bank account did not mean rich ideas; in fact, often the reverse. The bigger your ass, the more you want to cover it.

Religions do not teach doubt.

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

We will be just like the USA. Only we will be more honest." "We've got two parties." "No you do not. You have only the party of the banks, of the money men, and they divide it into two pieces for your voting.

This was what never failed to stir her—the unfathomable gulf between today’s thinking and the way the ancients thought. They were truly alien, not merely innocent agrarians with a foolish faith.

Thing about crazies is, they’re crazy. You can’t even understand them in retrospect.

Wars don’t determine who’s right, only who’s left.

It was one thing to be instantly attracted to a woman, and another to like her independence, the way she took no notice of what he thought of her, one way or the other. She was indeed a modern woman—not aggressive, yet not submissive. A self-possessed apartness, a lack of cling...
Yes, that was what held his attention: her reserve. The promise of depths you could not guess merely by seeing her in a swimsuit.

Everybody feels he has a right to a life of luxury — or at least comfort — so there’s a lot of frustration and resentment when the dream craps out.