# Quote — John Wyndham, The Seeds of Time

> 'Do you never work? Does nobody work?' I asked Clytassamine.
>
> 'Oh yes - if he wants to,' she said.
>
> 'But what about the unpleasant things - the things that must be done?'
>
> 'What things?' she asked, puzzled.
>
> 'Well, growing food, providing power, disposing of waste, all that kind of thing.'
>
> She looked surprised.
>
> 'Why, naturally, the machines do all that. You wouldn't expect men to do those things. Good heavens, what have we got brains for?"
>
> 'But who looks after the machines - keeps them in order?'
>
> 'Themselves, of course.'

- Author: [John Wyndham](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-wyndham.md)
- Book: [The Seeds of Time](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-wyndham/the-seeds-of-time.md)
- Page: 157
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Wyndham#The_Seeds_of_Time_(1956)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-wyndham/the-seeds-of-time/do-you-never

## More from this book

> 'But how can you stand it - just going on and on?'
>
> It is not easy sometimes - and some of us do give up, but that is a crime, because there is always chance. And it's not quite so monotonous as you think. Each transfer makes a difference. You feel as if the world had become a different place then. The spirit rises in you like sap in spring. . . . And those glands you think so much of are not entirely without effect, because you are never quite the same person with quite the same tastes. Even in one body tastes can change quite a lot in one lifetime, and they inevitably differ slightly between bodies. But you are the same person, you have your memory, yet you are young again, you're hopeful, the world looks brighter, you think you'll be wiser this time. . . . And then you fall in love again, just as sweetly and foolishly as before. It's wonderful - like a re-birth. You can only know just how wonderful if you have been fifty and then become twenty.'
>
> 'I can guess,' I said.

p. 158 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-wyndham/the-seeds-of-time/but-how-can.md)

> 'In the end, defeat, and the cold, must come. First to the system, then the galaxy, then the universe, and the rest will be silence. Not to admit that is a foolish vanity.' She paused. 'Yet one grows flowers because they are lovely - not because one wishes them to live for ever.'

p. 160 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-wyndham/the-seeds-of-time/in-the-end.md)

> 'In spite of what they say, two can't live as cheap as one. And wives hanker after certain standards, and ought to have them - within reason, of course.'

p. 25 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/john-wyndham/the-seeds-of-time/in-spite-of-what.md)