James Blish

Quotes

1. It is written:

   That given any one of a thousand million possible paths, life will take them all;

   That worlds which will support life will give birth to it;

   That worlds which cannot support intelligent life will be colonized;

   And that where both can take place, both will take place.

   It is written that this is what the vast, unknowing interstellar stage is for: To be given consciousness and purpose while its gift of existence lasts.

   It is written:

   That this is a random process;

   That in the end all will be darkness and silence again;

   But that while it lasts, life spreads through it, to make it aware of its own vastness and beauty, which otherwise it can never have known.

   This is a gift; but the Giver is unknown.

   That too is written.

   p. 190

2. 

   The technicians thought I was crazy. Now, five months later, I’ve proved it.

   p. 72

3. 

   “Something tells me that this isn’t going to be as simple as it looks.”

   “What is?” Wald said, raising his eyebrows.

   “Nothing, of course. But hope springs eternal in the human spleen.”

   p. 77

4. 

   “Impossible!” Father Domenico cried, though choking with the dust of the exploded crucifix. “It is written that in that war you will at last nature conquered and chained!”

   p. 164

5. 

   He was getting to be a little old for combat or for princesses, but what was worse, he had become a lot more cynical without having become even slightly the wiser.

   p. 18

6. 

   You’ll remember I told you I was interested in the history of science. That involves trying to understand why there wasn’t any science for so long, and why it went into eclipse almost every time it was rediscovered. I think I know why now. I think the human mind goes through a sort of cycle of fear. It can only take so much accumulated knowledge, and then it panics, and starts inventing reasons to throw everything over and go back to a Dark Age…every time with a new, invented mystical reason.

   p. 155

7. 

   We often resort to something called Hilbert space, which is described as n-dimensional—it’s like modern sex, any number may be played with.

   p. 116

8. 

   “Look at it this way for a moment, Dr. Ware. Very roughly, there are only two general kinds of men who go into the munitions business—those without consciences, who see the business as an avenue to a great fortune, eventually to be used for something else, like Jack here—and of course there’s a subclass of those, people who do have consciences but can’t resist the money anyhow, or the knowledge, rather like Dr. Hess.”

   Both men stirred, but apparently both decided not to dispute their portraits.

   “The second kind is made up of people like me—people who actually take pleasure in the controlled production of chaos and destruction. Not sadists primarily, except in the sense that every dedicated artist is something of a sadist, willing to countenance a little or a lot of suffering—not only his own, but other people’s—for the sake of the end product.”

   “A familiar type, to be sure,” Ware said with a lopsided grin. “I think it was the saintly Robert Frost who said that a painting by Whistler was worth any number of old ladies.”

   “Engineers are like this too,” Baines said.

   p. 109

9. 

   He had been greatly talented once, but the loss of gifted experimenters to administrative posts was the curse of all research organizations.

   p. 43

10. 

    The first thing a psychologist learns is to keep her mouth shut around laymen.

    p. 180

11. 

    We cannot count upon the secret being kept. It’s a fact of nature, and as somebody or other remarked long ago, Nature is a blabbermouth; ask the right question, and you’ll always get the answer.

    p. 105

12. 

    The express pulled into the Stazione Termini in Rome five minutes ahead of schedule with a feminine shriek. Ruiz found a porter with no difficulty, tipped him the standard 100 lire for his two pieces of luggage, and gave directions. The priest’s Italian was adequate, but hardly standard; it made the facchino grin with delight every time Ruiz opened his mouth. He had learned it by reading, partly in Dante, mostly in opera libretti, and consequently what he lacked in accent he made up for in flowery phrases; he was unable to ask the way to the nearest fruit stall without sounding as though he would throw himself into the Tiber unless he got an answer.

    p. 171