John Brunner Quotes

Until last year, although this town was barely fifty miles from Denver, the road had been bad and only a handful of visitors had chanced on it. The increasing tendency for people to take mountain vacations, however, since the sea had become too filthy to be tolerable, could not be ignored. The road now was excellent and the area had exploded.

They surely are condemned to Hell Who rule their lives by greed and lust And Satan waits for those as well Who in machines repose their trust.

It's not because my mind is made up that I don't want you to confuse me with any more facts. It's because my mind isn't made up. I already have more facts than I can cope with.

It's common platitude that knowledge is neutral but every now and then it would be useful if it was on your side and not theirs.

Most rich people get rich by taking what they want without paying for it. It’s the way of the world.

But what brought about this 'decline of civilization'?" Conroy demanded. "It can't just have been the introduction of these weapons you've been talking about, this System C equipment."
"The maximization of arms sales implied the maximization of inter-human hostility," Madison/Gottschalk said. "All the existing sources of this phenomenon were tapped, and those proving particularly fruitful were patriotism, parochialism, xenophobia, ochlophobia, racial, religious and linguistic differences, and the so-called 'gulf between the generations.' It was found readily feasible to emphasize these pre-existent attitudes to the point where a System C integrated weaponry unit was so desirable among the informed populace that the possibility of another individual acquiring this virtually indestructible equipment sufficed to provoke an attack on him before he purchased one.

Faust felt like this. The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, the devil will come and Faustus must be damned … How long did he buy with the currency of his soul — ten years?

Most of them seem to be at it in the roof-garden. Want to go and watch,get some pressure up for later?”
“I think these cigarettes are horrible. Made my throat so sore. And my guts are all sour and nasty. Did people really use twenty in a day?”
“They call it streamlining, of course, but what it comes down to is they’re undermining my responsibility in the firm and I’m going to fight tooth and claw to hang on to what I’ve got. If I have to play it dirty that’ll be their fault, not mine.”
“It makes genuine three-dimensional poetry possible for the first time in history. Right now he’s experimenting with motion added, and some of the things he’s turned out are hair-raising.”
“You hold the knife this way, see?”
“Refuse to teach their children to read and write, say it handicaps them for the post-Gutenberg era.”
“Not many people have spotted it but there’s a loophole in the Maryland eugenics law.”
“A polyformer for water-sculpture, quite new.”
“Of course I don’t love Henry the way I love you but the shrinker did tell me I ought to occasionally.”
“I’m just cutting jets for a prayer or two but I’ll be back — don’t get involved with anyone else.”
“That makes seventeen different mixtures I’ve tried, and I’d better have some antalc, right away.”
“I think it was bitchy not to tell Miriam it was pig-meat.

It was a great image, especially for areas where there was strong Muslim influence and the concomitant view prevailed that women had no souls.

…as though, capable themselves of suffering, they granted no reality to the suffering of others. ‘The subject exhibited a pain response.’ But not, under any circumstances, we hurt her.

“I was brought up as a Christian,” Cissy said. “Spelt K-I-L-L-J-O-Y. My mam still is one. When I said I was going to quit the church because of what I’d learned from Val about the history of slavery, I thought she was going to kill me!” She laughed nervously. But obviously that was not a joke.

« Votre pays, le mien, tous les pays du monde, partagent la même cause, et le résultat, c’est que des gens qui s’en foutent comme d’une fiente de baleine sont envoyés pour tuer des femmes et des enfants. La voilà, la cause de tous les pays ! Et vous savez ce que c’est que cette cause ? Pour moi, c’est de la rapacité pure et simple, et elle me pue au nez ! »

Their lusts had known no limit until now. They had gorged themselves, surpassed their own imaginings again and again, recklessly squandering what they had supposed to be inexhaustible; they had been like children in a house filled with sweetmeats, destroying what they could not consume. Until now.
Now it was as though the planet itself was sick of their arrogance.

"Latro, California: "Terrible diarrhea, Doctor, and I feel so weak!" "Take these pills and come back in three days if you're not better."
Parkington, Texas: "Terrible diarrhea..." "Take these pills..."
Hainesport, Louisiana: "Terrible..." "Take..."
Baker Bay, Florida...
Washington, DC...
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
New York, New York...
Boston, Massachusetts...
Chicago, Illinois: "Doctor, I know it's Sunday, but the kid's in such a terrible state - you've got to help me!" "Give him some junior aspirin and bring him to my office tomorrow. Goodbye."

EVERYWHERE, USA: a sudden upswing in orders for very small coffins, the right size to take a baby dead from acute infantile enteritis."

Unto the third and fourth generation, General Motors, you have visited your greed on the children. Unto the twentieth, AEC, you have twisted their limbs and closed their eyes. Unto the last dawn of man you have cursed us, O Father. Our Father. Our Father Which art in Washington, give us this day our daily calcium propionate, sodium diacetate monoglyceride, potassium bromate, calcium phosphate, monobasic chloramine T, aluminium potassium sulphate, sodium benzoate, butylated hydroxyanisole, mono-iso-propyl citrate, axerophthol and calciferol. Include with it a little flour and salt.
Amen.