Novelists From England

"Everything dies eventually—but that shouldn’t stop us enjoying life while it is there to be enjoyed."

"I have never had trouble with conflicting interpretations of my work. Once the story is published, it belongs to the reader."

"“An ethic is simply a system of survival,” Velusi said. “What does an ethic mean when there is no chance of survival?”"

"Fear was back and with it the old terrors, the old mental aberrations, the old superstitions, the old religions. He knew the pattern. He had studied it in the text books. He knew how little power rational argument had when faced with minds turned sick by fear. He knew how quickly a cult of the kind he had seen could proliferate and dominate a society and then split internally and become several warring sects."

"The society was the nearest thing to perfection that had ever existed; vital without being violent, stable without being stagnant. This society had resulted from a number of factors, the most important being a small population served by a sophisticated technology and an equally sophisticated administrative system. The arts were alive, there was universal literacy, the philosophies flourished."

"Alain left the cell, left Police Headquarters and stood for a long time by a splashing fountain, staring into the clear water and watching the darting goldfish swimming in the narrow confines of the pool. Did they understand just how narrow their little universe was? he wondered. They seemed happy enough, if fish could be happy. But if they weren’t happy, he reflected, neither were they sad. They had no tradition but instinct, no ritual but the quest for food and a mate. He didn’t envy them much."

"Listening to the conversation, his faith in the stupidity of human nature was fully restored."

"Why ascribe meaning to all this? The further away from the fundamentals of life we go, the more we quest for their meaning. There is no meaning. It is here. It has always been here in some state. It will always be here. That is all we can ever truly know. It is all we should want to know."

"A threat to free speech. It was marvelous how they accepted the principles of democracy and rejected them at the same time by talk of mob action!"

"Any forthcoming dispute was likely to be a battle between ignorance of one sort and ignorance of another."

"Perhaps he was old and wise, perhaps he was just old."

"He existed in all the many dimensions of the multiverse. Yet he, in common with all others, was bound by the dimension of Time. He had cast off the chains of space but was tied, as perhaps all denizens of the multiverse would always be, by the imperturbable prowl of Time, which brooked no halt, which condoned no tampering with its movement, whether to slow it or to speed it. Time, the changer, could not be changed. Space, perhaps, the material environment, could be conquered. Time, never."

"The time has come for the dismantling of fantasies. That is already happening to our universe. Now that we have this one chance of survival we must finally rid ourselves of fantasies and seize that chance! For centuries our race has built on false assumptions. If you build a fantasy based on a false assumption and continue to build on such a fantasy, your whole existence becomes a lie which you implant in others who are too lazy or too busy to question its truth. In this manner you threaten the very existence of reality, because, by refusing to obey its laws, those laws engulf and destroy you. The human race has for too long been manufacturing convenient fantasies and calling them laws. For ages this was so. Take war, for instance. Politicians assume that something is true, assume that strife is inevitable, and by building on such false assumptions, lo and behold, they create further wars which they have, ostensibly, sought to prevent. We have, until now, accepted too many fantasies as being truths, too many truths as fantasies. And we have one last chance to discover the real nature of our existence. I am prepared to take it!"

"“He was a fool,” said Willow calmly to Klein. “There are many who refuse their responsibilities. Fooling themselves they search for a ‘higher ideal’. He was a fool.” “What are responsibilities?” said Klein laconically. “He knows. Responsibility, my dear, is another word for self-interest. For survival.” She looked at Klein uncomprehendingly."

"Again this is an old question, a bit trite from being asked too often, maybe, but how much of what we believe is true and how much is what we wish were true."

"The Dead God’s Book and the Golden Barge are one and the same. They have no real existence, save in the wishful imagination of mankind. There is, the story says, no Holy Grail which will transform a man overnight from bewildered ignorance to complete knowledge—the answer already is within him, if he cares to train himself to find it. A rather overemphasised fact, throughout history, but one generally ignored all the same."

"“And thank you, also, for the joke.” “The joke?” “Why truly—the best joke is but a simple statement of truth.”… He mounted, flapped the reins, and, as the gray gelding broke into a trot he said to himself: “A joke indeed, but it is a pity that men do not laugh at it more often.”"

"“Is there anything you need?” “Need? Aye. Peace of mind. Knowledge of my true destiny. A quiet place where I can be with Cymoril, whom I love.”"

"Like so many others he seemed to equate self-pity with artistic inspiration. In an earlier age he might have discovered his public and become quite rich (self-pity passing for passion in the popular understanding)."

"She opened her bag and made sure of her jar of instant coffee. It was the one thing she couldn’t get at the End of Time."

"Why hadn't the dead human race realized this? It was only necessary to exist, not to be trying constantly to prove you existed when the fact was plain. Plain to him, he realized, because he had climbed a mountain. This knowledge was his reward. He had not received any ability to think with greater clarity, or a vision to reveal the secret of the universe, or an experience of ecstasy. He had been given, by himself, by his own action, insensate peace, the infinite tranquility of existing."

"“Your yearning, Pepin Hunchback, is not for the past as it was,” she was saying softly. “It is for a world that never existed—a Paradise, a Golden Age. Men have always spoken of such a time in history—but such an idyllic world is a yearning for childhood, not the past, for lost innocence. It is childhood we wish to return to.”"

"Time and Matter are both ideas. Matter makes a more immediate impression on Man, but Time’s effects are longer lasting."

"You fail to understand, my friend. We do not control time. If anything, it controls us. We simply measure it."

"“I am already late, I fear. What time is it?” “Time? Why the present, of course.”"

"Wasn’t all their effort worthless? Wouldn’t it be better to accept the impossibility of their mission? He began to think Krane was mad. If there were a threat, then inevitably they would die. Death was the future of all people, all planets, all universes. Their struggle was symbolic of the futility of living creatures who fought against their own inevitable extinction. What were a few more years of existence compared to the longevity of a cosmos? In those terms, the whole history of their species lasted for less than a fraction of a second. And then, sheltering beside him under the protection of the energy equalizer, she looked up for a second, and, obscurely, he understood that the effort always would be worth it. Always had been worth it."

"There were three known existing sapphires. One was in the Conquest of Space Museum on Terra, one was in the hands of United System President Polonius Delph—he was the richest man in seven worlds, or had been until he’d paid cash for his jewel. The other had been stolen soon after its discovery. Maybe Delph had it... “From what I understand of your world, Delph isn’t the only one who wants the sapphires. He has rivals in the Plutocracy. Another mysterious collector? Or those rivals are competing for the presidency or they think they can ruin him. As you know, it’s a vicious circle in politics. You can’t get to be president unless you have the wealth and you can’t really make massive sums until you’re president.”"

"“You only need fear the bees if you’ve broken the law.” That familiar phrase was used to justify every encroachment on citizens’ liberty."

"What the local politicians actually meant was that they hoped to claim the land in the name of the public and then make the usual profits privatizing it. There was a principle at stake. They had to ensure their friends and not outsiders got the benefit."

"Americans need bullshit the way koala bears need eucalyptus leaves. They’ve become totally addicted to it. They get so much of it back home that they can’t survive without it."

"True madness, like true evil, I had been informed once, was always characterised by its banality."

"“We never accepted, thank God, the conventional wisdoms of psychiatry. And madness here, as elsewhere, is defined by the people in power, usually calling themselves the State. Tomorrow those power holders could be overthrown by a fresh dynasty and what was yesterday simple common sense today becomes irresponsible folly. So I do not like to make hasty judgements or pronounce readily on others’ moral or mental condition—lest, indeed, we inadvertently condemn ourselves.” He paused. “They say this was not so under the British, but it was fairer, more predictable. Only real troublemakers and criminals went to jail. Now it isn't as bad as it was when I was a lad. Then anyone was liable to arrest. If it was better under the British, then that is our shame.”"

"He turned his eyes back to the river which seemed almost to obsess him. “Look at the Nile. An open sewer running through a desert. What has Egypt done to deserve rescue? She gave the world the ancestors who first offered Nature a serious challenge. Should we be grateful for that? From Lake Nasser to Alexandria the river remains undrinkable and frequently unusable. She once replenished the Earth. Now, work with their fertilisers and sprays, she helps poison it.”"

"The Reens, the flying saucer people, were used by the hippies as an explanation for everything they couldn't understand. In rejecting Science, they had substituted only a banal myth."

"When confused, men turn to war and women to magic."

"I appreciated his attempt at a neutral tone, given his evident distaste for matter psychic and mystical. We shared, I think, a similar outlook."

"Hard labour is a wonderful cure for neurosis!"

"I think the human race has rather foolishly cancelled many of its options."

"He laughed. Clearly the idea of the governor intervening on behalf of an ordinary member of the public amused him."

"“Those who did not like her said that she was a witch. And it is true that two of my women saw her consorting with the spell-seller from the Souk. The one called Lallah Zenobia. The black woman. Thou and I art men of the world and understand that it is superstitious folly. But thou knowest how women are. And they are often,” he added in an even lower tone, “susceptible to Yehudim flattery and lies.” It was by no means the first time I had to accept such sentiments from the mouth of one who was otherwise hospitality, tolerance and kindness personified. To persuade a desert Arab that Jews are not in direct and regular touch with Satan and all his minions is still no easier than persuading a Dixie Baptist that the doors of a Catholic Church are not necessarily a direct gateway to Hell."

"The subtlest lie of all is the full truth."

"(What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves?) I don’t know, because I don’t know what you expect. Would finding all Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels be a shock?"

"Charles and I read to each other every night before dinner. We're working our way with great joy through Patrick O'Brian's sea stories. I think he's a storyteller on the order of Kipling. Marvelous stuff. They're just a delight."

"O'Brian is not always easy to cite, because his many terse moments of wit and aptitude require context for their explication, and because he allows himself so much time and room for the development of his tale.."

"Most historical novels suffer from the fatal twin defects of emphasizing the pastness of the past too much while at the same time seeking to be over-familiar with it (“Have some more of this Chian,” drawled Alcibiades). O’Brian does neither."

"“Other people's marriages are a perpetual source of amazement.”"

"My God, oh my God," he said. "Six hundred men."

"Jack,you have debauched my sloth."

"“This short watch that is about to come, or rather these two short watches--why are they called dog watches? Where, heu, heu, is the canine connection?'"

"“But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile.”"