John Wyndham Quotes

Was she a bit mad?" "Mad? Oh, no - unless you would call a failure to grow up a kind of madness - in which case there would be very few sane people.

Dying," observed the doctor, "is such a very ordinary thing to do.

There is a sense of reason's fingernails scrabbling to keep their hold, as one slides towards something which is not accountable; not, by ordinary standards, quite sane...

I'd begun to grasp the principle that the less anybody knows, the less any squealer can give away. And it was easy to see that in a place where questioning was liable to assume the aspect of a blood-sport, the less one did know about other people's business, the better.

I suppose we all have a number of carefully furnished, non-communicating rooms in our minds.

I see death as the worm's opportunity. It is defeat. You can dress it as you like, with drama, or glory, or pomposity, and perhaps deceive yourself for the critical moment - but, nevertheless, the same worm comes - it is defeat...

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.

To sleep in peace, and resume a nightmare when one wakes, is a highly undesirable reversal of the natural order.

There is a degree of odds against which a gambler becomes just another mug.

Practically everyone there had had an air of brooding privately with differing intensity. I knew now what it had reminded me of - the outpatients department of a hospital.

The thing is to play your own game - not let the other feller force you to what he wants.

One man's trash is another's souvenir.

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

You can half-expect things. Try to face them in advance, case-harden your mind, you think - but when they come, it's always different.

It's all pretty simple if you don't give a damn who gets hurt in the rush.