John Wyndham

"To take an illustration—a bad one, I admit, but enough for our purpose—one may consider time as a river. You may turn boats adrift on it at many points, and they will all collect together at the same serious obstacle, whether they have travelled a hundred miles or two miles."

Ever seen an old man just sitting in the sun, taking it easy? It doesn't have to mean he's senile. It may do, but very likely he can snap out of it and put his mind to work again if it gets really necessary. But mostly he finds it not worth the bother. Less trouble just to let things happen.'

'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.'

'Thank you, Hester,' Janet said, as she leaned back against the cushion placed behind her. Not that it was necessary to thank a robot, but she had a theory that if you did not practise politeness with robots you soon forgot it with other people.

To sleep in peace, and resume a nightmare when one wakes, is a highly undesirable reversal of the natural order.

"I see death as the worm's opportunity. It is defeat. You can dress it as you like, with drama, or glory, or pomposity, and perhaps deceive yourself for the critical moment - but, nevertheless, the same worm comes - it is defeat..."

'A species continues to exist by outbreeding the checks that its natural enemies impose on it. That is what gives the illusion of "the balance of nature" belief. Once the natural enemies cease to be a threat its fecundity becomes terrifying. Look what has happened in a generation or two to our own population, largely because a few diseases have been overcome. Find a way of conquering the natural enemies, and the only limiting factor is the food supply.'

It's all pretty simple if you don't give a damn who gets hurt in the rush.

In the name of Au, and all lesser gods, [Nokiki] cursed the island of Tanakuatua for the ruin of his people. He cursed it from north to south, and from east to west, from the tops of its twin hills to the edge of its low tide. He cursed its soil and its rocks; its hot springs and its cold springs; its fruits and its trees; all that ran or crawled on it; everything that jumped on it, or flew over it; the roots in its soil, the life in its rock-pools. He cursed it by day, and he cursed it by night; in the dry season, and in the rainy season, in storm, and in calm.

His audience had never heard so comprehensive a curse, and it frightened them greatly.

But Nokiki had not done yet. He appealed above Au to Nakaa himself, Nakaa, the lawgiver, the judge before whom every man and woman must pass as he leaves this world for the land of ghosts.

He besought Nakaa to declare the island of Tanakuatua forever tabu to all men; to decree that if men should try to live on it they should sicken and die, and shrivel up so that their dust would blow away on the wind and there would be nothing of them left; and that when the ghosts of such men should come to be judged they might not go on to the Happy Land, but suffer, as all tabu-breakers do, shrieking on the stakes in the Pits for all eternity.

'The time has now come for us to cease to behave like a lot of irresponsible children letting off fireworks in a crowded hall.'

"Dying," observed the doctor, "is such a very ordinary thing to do."

"Was she a bit mad?"

"Mad? Oh, no - unless you would call a failure to grow up a kind of madness - in which case there would be very few sane people."