John Brunner

A cripple can still be a person, but in what sense is a lunatic human? Humanity’s in the mind, in the tangle of thoughts spun by the brain, and once that’s gone what remains is human only in outward shape.

Did you never hear it said that what sets the genius apart from the plodder is the ability to see what happens and not what he expects to happen?

Their lusts had known no limit until now. They had gorged themselves, surpassed their own imaginings again and again, recklessly squandering what they had supposed to be inexhaustible; they had been like children in a house filled with sweetmeats, destroying what they could not consume. Until now.

Now it was as though the planet itself was sick of their arrogance.

—Why can I never visualize things turning out better as clearly as I can visualize the catastrophes I scraped past by a hair? “Everything for the best in the best of all possible worlds!” Hah!

—Among the other things lunatics make: their own version of truth.

I’m unattuned to happiness.

Men change their gods, and when they have changed them often enough they cease to fear their power.

—What was I thinking earlier about lunatics making their own version of truth? Why specify lunatics?

He regarded himself as inhabiting a jungle in which behind masks of civilised behavior and conventional politeness everybody, doctor or not, was out for what he could get. No means of enhancing his reputation, status and income escaped him.