Jack Finney Quotes

I had the evening to kill, but it didn’t want to die and fought back.

The best thing in our show was always our move to the next town.

He’s about seventy-one, a retired lawyer with a reputation for grouchiness. But it’s less grouchiness, I think, than a simple unwillingness to put up with anyone who doesn’t interest him.

They couldn't promise that, could they?"
"Of course not. Congress would have to declare war; this was back in the old-fashioned days when Presidents felt they had to honor their oath to abide by the Constitution.

“Si, a lot of men make far greater sacrifices than he will. For the good of the country.”
“But he wouldn’t even be consulted about it!”
“Neither are they; they’re drafted into the army.”
“Well, maybe they should be asked, too.”
He genuinely didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe it’s wrong to force a man to join an army and kill other people against his own wishes.”
They just looked at me. What I was saying was really incomprehensible to them.

Haven’t you ever wished it were somehow possible to cross-examine an absolute stranger about something none of your business but damned interesting all the same? Well, think it over—if you’re a reporter, you can. There’s no law says it has to be printed.

I like women, I never run them down as somehow inferior to men, and I have a contempt for men who do. And I think, for one thing, that women are just as principled as men—but they sure as hell aren’t the same kind of principles.

You had no criminal record, not with us, anyway, but that didn’t tell me anything either; most people have no criminal record, and at least half of them ought to.

I was pleased at the thought of a girl with a hope chest full of power tools.

How is it possible for me to thank God in my heart for the food he gives me and for life, while every morsel I eat I earn with my toil and even suffering? There may be a Providence for the rich man, but every poor man must be his own Providence. As for the value of life, we poor folks don't live for ourselves at all; we live for other people. I often wonder if the rich man who owns great blocks of stock in the road and reckons his wealth in the millions does not sometimes think, as he sits at his well-filled table and looks at the happy faces of his children, of the poor car driver who toils for his benefit for a dollar and ninety cents a day, and is lucky if he tastes meat twice a week and can give the little ones at home warm clothes and blankets for the winter.

Sounds impressive. And expensive."
"Not at all." Danziger shook his head firmly. "It will cost, all told, only a little over three million dollars, less than the cost of two hours of war, and a better buy.

But it seems too bad—this universal craving to escape what could be a rich, productive, happy world. We live on a planet well able to provide a decent life for every soul on it, which is all ninety-nine of a hundred human beings ask. Why in the world can’t we have it?

It's going too far! My God, look what has already happened. The scientists make fantastic new discoveries which are immediately taken over by a group, almost a breed of men, who always know what's best for the rest of us. Science learns how to split the atom, and they immediately know that the best thing to do with that new knowledge is to blow up Hiroshima!

Spare me the nostalgia."
"I hate that word. You know who uses it mostly? Time patriots. Same people who live in the best country in the world. Must be the best because that's where they live. And they live in the best of times; has to be best because it's their lifetime. You even suggest there just might have been better times than here and now, and it's 'nostalgia, nostalgia.' Don't even know what the word means. Means overly sentimental, for crysakes.

Once in a while you’re momentarily conscious of being happy. But I’m superstitious, and I picture Fate—best be respectful, and use a capital F—as a misty presence somewhere up in the sky but not too far away. Always listening, alert and ready to punish forbidden optimism.