It doesn’t even matter if we ever fire these missiles or not. They are having their effect upon us because there is a generation growing up now who c… - Alan Moore

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It doesn’t even matter if we ever fire these missiles or not. They are having their effect upon us because there is a generation growing up now who cannot see past the final exclamation mark of a mushroom cloud. They are a generation who can see no moral values that do not end in a crackling crater somewhere. I’m not saying that nuclear bombs are at the root of all of it, but I think it is very, very naïve to assume that you can expose the entire population of the world to the threat of being turned to cinders without them starting to act, perhaps, a little oddly. I believe in some sort of strange fashion that the presence of the atom bomb might almost be forcing a level of human development that wouldn’t have occurred without the presence of the atom bomb. Maybe this degree of terror will force changes in human attitudes that could not have occurred without the presence of these awful, destructive things. Perhaps we are faced with a race between the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse in one line and the 7th Cavalry in the other. We have not got an awful lot of mid ground between Utopia and Apocalypse, and if somehow our children ever see the day in which it is announced that we do not have these weapons any more, and that we can no longer destroy ourselves and that we’ve got to do something else to do with our time than they will have the right to throw up their arms, let down their streamers and let forth a resounding cheer.

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About Alan Moore

Alan Moore (born 18 November 1953) is a British writer, most famous for his influential work in comic-books and graphic novels.

Biography information from Wikiquote · Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons, Fimb (CC BY)

Also Known As

Pen Names: Kurt Vile
Native Name: Alan Oswald Moore
Alternative Names: Curt Vile Jill de Ray Translucia Baboon The Original Writer

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Additional quotes by Alan Moore

The whole program of evolution seems to be to diversify, because in diversity there is strength. And if you apply that on a social level, then you get something like anarchy. Everybody is recognized as having their own abilities, their own particular agendas, and everybody has their own need to work cooperatively with other people. So it’s conceivable that the same kind of circumstances that obtain in a small human grouping, like a family or like a collection of friends, could be made to obtain in a wider human grouping like a civilization.

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