John Wyndham

"This isn't a nice cosy world for anyone—especially not for anyone that's different," he said.

"Knowledge?" said the doctor. "Yes, I suppose that is it. For ever and for ever seeking knowledge. And we don't even know why we seek it. It's an instinct, like self-preservation; and about as comprehensible. Why, I wonder, do I keep on living. I know I've got to die sooner or later, yet I take the best care I can that it shall be later instead of finishing the thing off in a reasonable manner. After all, I've done my bit—propagated my species, and yet for some inscrutable reason I want to go on living and learning. Just an instinct. Some kink in the evolutionary process caused this passion for knowledge, and the result is man—an odd little creature, scuttling around and piling up mountains of this curious commodity.

What do you suppose will happen when one day a man sits back in his chair and says: 'Knowledge is complete'? You see, it just sounds silly. We're so used to collecting it, that we can't imagine a world where it is all collected and finished."

"No one but a fool would say that a man who seethes inside like a volcano is calm.

I only know that when I see a man so tormented and cheated, and with such a look in his eyes, he is dangerous."

"But it is the old story of new generations refusing to be bound by the promises of their forefathers."

"Truth is not altered by belief or disbelief."

"There are some forms of knowledge which it is unwise to spread; men are not yet ready to handle them."

"We have been but little molested, for we have not the things which most men value."

It is a funny thing that for most men the whitest conscience is no protection from some apprehension in the presence of the police.

"I guess——" she said, wistfully—"I guess the only thing that's wrong with children is that they grow up to be people like you."

She showed all that maternal solicitude which so oddly hopes that its child will be outstanding while being absolutely normal, distinguished while being indistinguishable.

"The fact that we don't know how to do it doesn't prove its impossibility."

"Doubtless the first arrow did not kill a lion."