Algis Budrys

Quotes

1. There’s a certain step-by-step logic, inherent in human nature and the peculiarities of human psychology, which ensures that Man will always organize into the largest possible group. Civilization is inevitable, if you want a pat phrase.

   p. 82

2. 

   And, in Cot’s mind as in that of every other human being, what had been a twinging secret shame was disastrous and disgusting as a public horror.

   p. 133

3. 

   Tomorrow would be better. Tomorrow was always better, for someone. The difficult task lay in ensuring that the someone was one of yours.

   p. 51

4. 

   People want to be safe, and comfortable. If safety and comfort is to be found in guns, then they will take up guns—of their own accord, in their own need. And when safety and comfort are found in libraries, then the guns rust.

   p. 122

5. 

   Well, I suppose we have to have young intellectuals, if we’re ever to survive to be middle-aged philosophers.

   p. 84

6. 

   “You’re sincere enough.” She laughed shortly. “Heaven protect the human race from the sincere idealist!”

   p. 101

7. 

   It hadn’t had to take the form of this terrible bubble. It might as easily have been a sudden sharp burst behind his eyes or a slower, subtler gnawing at his vitals. But he’d known it was coming, as every man knows and tries to forget it is coming.

   p. 64

8. 

   There are various uses for time, and I have better ones than this.

   p. 23

9. 

   Amnesia was the price of immortality.

   p. 27

10. 

    Wasn’t being a dilettante the result of an inner conviction that you were too good for routine living?

    p. 30

11. 

    Claire threw her head and laughed. “There are all kinds of men. The only kind that’re worth anyone’s time are the ones I can’t mangle the first time out.”

    p. 22

12. 

    Look, if I could guarantee what the results were going to be, I wouldn’t need a research program!

    p. 57