# The Quincunx of Time

- Author: [James Blish](https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-blish.md)
- Quotes: 9
- Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/james-blish/the-quincunx-of-time

## Quotes

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

p. 72

> “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

> 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

> 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

> 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

> No exercise of will can make any of us other than what we are, or more than marginally better than who we are.

p. 118

> I’ve already given you the whole explanation of how that came about. It happened because it was going to happen. All other explanations for anything are superfluous. All other explanations for anything.

p. 89

> “The motto of the bureau,” Weinbaum said, “is, ‘sometimes something works.’”

p. 75

> Actually, there are never motives behind actions. All actions are fixed. What we call motives evidently are rationalizations by the helpless observing consciousness, which is intelligent enough to smell an event coming—and, since it cannot avert the event, instead cooks up reasons for wanting it to happen...or ascribes it to the malice of God or man.

p. 84