John Wyndham

It is what has happened, and is happening now, that determines the future. Therefore, there must be a great number of possible futures, each a possible consequence of what is being done now.

"It boils down to this. If a man, any man, claims to have had an experience which is outside all normal experience, it will be inferred, will it not, that he is in some way not quite a normal man? A small cloud, a mere wrack, of doubt and risk begins to gather above him. It is tenuous, too insubstantial for him to disperse, yet it casts a faint, persistent shadow.

There is, I imagine, no such thing as a normal human being, but there is a widespread feeling that there ought to be. Any organisation has a conception of 'the type of man we want here' which is regarded as the normal for its purposes. So every man there attempts more or less to accord to it - organisational man, in fact - and anyone who diverges more than slightly from the type in either his public, or in his private life does so to the peril of his career."

I had only my thoughts to occupy me, and they were not good company.

"But if they change me shape, and change me voice, and change me hair and change me face, as they say, what is it that is me, at all?" asked Peggy.

The world has so multiplied the causes of fear that no one is left entirely unafraid.

"There are, of course, risks. In fact, there are three distinct kinds of risk: the known ones which we can and shall prepare against; the known ones which we must trust to luck to avoid; and the entirely unknown."

"We have had a glorious past—but a glorious past is bitterness for a child with a hopeless future."

'Somehow running away seldom seems to work out well unless you have a pretty good idea what you're running to."

Unfortunately there were certain persons with elastic principles.

There was often a great deal of grown-up fuss that seemed disproportionate to causes.

The ways of the world were very puzzling. . . .

Wondering why one's friends chose to marry the people they did is unprofitable, but recurrent.

"Life in all its forms is strife; the better matched the opponents, the harder the struggle. The most powerful of all weapons is intelligence; any intelligent form dominates by, and therefore survives by, its intelligence."