John Wyndham Quotes

The fact that we don't know how to do it doesn't prove its impossibility.

There's plenty o' chaps full of book learnin' an' unemployed with it.

She showed all that maternal solicitude which so oddly hopes that its child will be outstanding while being absolutely normal, distinguished while being indistinguishable.

A man's the same as the rest of us or 'e's a freak. Stands to reason.

It takes civilised people quite a while to appreciate 'the big lie' technique.

It is a funny thing that for most men the whitest conscience is no protection from some apprehension in the presence of the police.

What is the use of life?

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.

It boils down to this. If a man, any man, claims to have had an experience which is outside all normal experience, it will be inferred, will it not, that he is in some way not quite a normal man? A small cloud, a mere wrack, of doubt and risk begins to gather above him. It is tenuous, too insubstantial for him to disperse, yet it casts a faint, persistent shadow. There is, I imagine, no such thing as a normal human being, but there is a widespread feeling that there ought to be. Any organisation has a conception of 'the type of man we want here' which is regarded as the normal for its purposes. So every man there attempts more or less to accord to it - organisational man, in fact - and anyone who diverges more than slightly from the type in either his public, or in his private life does so to the peril of his career.

"But if they change me shape, and change me voice, and change me hair and change me face, as they say, what is it that is me, at all?" asked Peggy.

"Now," said Miss Arbuthnot, "I expect you'll want to see your personality-coach." [...]
"Light vivacity, light vivacity, just say it to yourself over and over whenever you're doing nothing in particular - and even if you are." "But is that really my personality? Is it the real me?" asked Peggy. Miss Carnegie raised her eyebrows. "Your personality?" she said, then she smiled. "Oh, I see. Oh dear, you have got a lot to learn, haven't you? You're confusing us with the television side, I'm afraid. Screen personality is quite different. Oh, yes, indeed. A few years ago it was sultry, then we had sparkling for a time, then we had a stretch of sincerity - let me see what came next? Oh, yes, smouldering, and, for a rather brief time, ingenuousness - but that doesn't suit modern audiences, silly to try it, really - then there was a spell of passionpent - the audiences liked that all right, but it was exceedingly trying for everyone else. This season it's lightly vivacious. So just keep on saying it to yourself until you come to me again next Wednesday. Light-vivacity, light vivacity! Try to throw your weight a little more forward on your toes, you'll find that'll help. Light-vivacity, light-vivacity!"
And then to her coiffeur, to her facial-artist, to her deportment-instructor, to her dietician, to a number of others, until, finally, to Miss Higgins.

It is what has happened, and is happening now, that determines the future. Therefore, there must be a great number of possible futures, each a possible consequence of what is being done now.

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

'Thank you, Hester,' Janet said, as she leaned back against the cushion placed behind her. Not that it was necessary to thank a robot, but she had a theory that if you did not practise politeness with robots you soon forgot it with other people.

Keeping to an unnecessary programme requires resolution.