John Wyndham

I don't understand women. Nobody does. Least of all themselves.

I felt a poignant memory of those desolate patches of disillusion which are the shocks of growing up. The discovery that one lived in a world which could pay honour where honour was not due, was just such a one. The values were rocked, the dependable was suddenly flimsy, the solid became hollow, gold turned to brass, there was no integrity anywhere . . .

"There is many a flower which would not be growing if the dung had not happened to fall where it did."

"She agreed, really. But she said, well, this is the kind of world we have to live in. There is so very much that's wrong with it, but then life is so short that the best anyone can do is to come to terms with it while doing her best to preserve her own standards. She said it would be different if we had more time to spare, but now there isn't enough margin to make people do things about it. By the time your children have grown up you're beginning to get old, so it isn't worth trying to do much, and then in another twenty-five years it will be the same for them, and— Why, Diana, what on earth's the matter . . . ?"

"The frustrations are still buzzing about, and soon they are going to find a new place to swarm."

"Most births are painful, and none are pretty."

"An open mind is a difficult thing to keep."

The vitriol throwers and smilers with knives

Pretty girls are lovely as the flowers in May, but there are so many flowers in May.

"She doesn't think about anything—she's sort of programmed, like a computer. There's a conditioned response system. She hears, and then acceptance, rejection, and reaction drums go click-click-click, and the answer comes out sort of codified, just exactly right for people who use the same code."

"Isn't that a little intolerant?" Francis had suggested. "After all, aren't we all rather like that if we consider ourselves honestly?"

"To some degree," Zephanie admitted. "Only some people seem to be rigged always to play the house—like fruit machines."

"Intelligent life is the only thing that gives meaning to the universe. It is a holy thing, to be fostered and treasured.

Without it nothing begins, nothing ends, there can be nothing through all eternity but the mindless babblings of chaos . . .

Therefore, the nurture of all intelligent forms is a sacred duty. Even the merest spark of reason must be fanned in the hope of a flame. Frustrated intelligence must have its bonds broken. Narrow-channelled intelligence must be given the power to widen out. High intelligence must be learned from."

'You can't drive a flock of sheep to market in a dead straight line, but there are ways of getting 'em there.'