Top 15 John Wyndham Quotes

A mind oppressed by a sense of sin can play a lot of nasty tricks. Nowadays they talk of guilt complexes and inhibitions. Names change: when I was a boy the same thing was known as a bad conscience . . .

The creatures fling the most dangerous frequencies around, not only without effort but regardless of consequences.

What is life anyway? - some kind of seed floating about the universe until it finds suitable conditions to develop? May be. Lord knows what there may be in all this Space. Perhaps we were once a few chance spores; perhaps there are a lot of different kinds of life floating about waiting for time to give them their chance . . .

Truth is not altered by belief or disbelief.

There are some forms of knowledge which it is unwise to spread; men are not yet ready to handle them.

We have been but little molested, for we have not the things which most men value.

Those are the methods of Earth; that is the honour of great companies, as you will know to your cost should you have dealings with them. They'll use you, and then break you. . . .

"And it all comes of this gallivanting about the Universe. I never did think much of it. Stick to your own planet, is what I say; it's quite big enough. But will they? Not so's you'd notice it. They go flinging themselves into space, and then what happens?" He paused aggrievedly.

What did I tell you?" said my neighbour excitedly. "Force of mind, that's what those people use; that's why their hands are vestigial. Pure will-power." The dwarf seemed to hear him, for he looked towards us. "I am surprised," he sneered, "that you even know of such a thing as will-power. I judged by your reflexes that you had only instincts.

It was curious that, in facing the man, I felt none of the distaste one has for an abnormality.

No one but a fool would say that a man who seethes inside like a volcano is calm.
I only know that when I see a man so tormented and cheated, and with such a look in his eyes, he is dangerous.

But it is the old story of new generations refusing to be bound by the promises of their forefathers.

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

The English," [Vinski] remarked at length, "have a saying that possession is nine points of the law. It is just the kind of sentiment one would expect to find in a capitalist country.

Doubtless the first arrow did not kill a lion.