John Wyndham Quotes

On the principle that if you walk briskly with an air of purpose ninety-nine per cent of the people you meet will assume it is a proper purpose, I did just that.

Primitive man would see every one of us as a magician.

Many men on earth have the vanity to believe in another life.

The time has now come for us to cease to behave like a lot of irresponsible children letting off fireworks in a crowded hall.

She rummaged in a battered bag beside her, brought out a dirty spoon, and began to taste the beans as if they were one of the jams of paradise.

If life weren't so short it would be worth people's while to do more to put the world to rights.

In point of fact our ascendancy has been so complete that we are rarely called upon to kill wolves nowadays - in fact, most of us have quite forgotten what it means to have to fight in a personal way against another species. But, when the need arises we have no compunction in fully supporting those who slay the threat whether it is from wolves, insects, bacteria, or filterable viruses; we give no quarter, and certainly expect no pardon.

To take an illustration—a bad one, I admit, but enough for our purpose—one may consider time as a river. You may turn boats adrift on it at many points, and they will all collect together at the same serious obstacle, whether they have travelled a hundred miles or two miles.

There are, of course, risks. In fact, there are three distinct kinds of risk: the known ones which we can and shall prepare against; the known ones which we must trust to luck to avoid; and the entirely unknown.

The dove is not a coward to fear the hawk; it is simply wise.

Why was I condemned to live in a democracy where every fool's vote is equal to a sensible man's?

Fate is not above using inconsiderable details for her obscure purpose.

I suppose one could scarcely have had innocence and experience. Being young is very exhausting and unsatisfactory, really—although it looks so nice.

I had only my thoughts to occupy me, and they were not good company.

We've got it all there in the books if we take the trouble to find out about it.