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Edgar Pangborn Quotes

1909–1976 United States

Edgar Pangborn (February 25, 1909 – February 1, 1976) was an American writer of mystery, historical, and science fiction.

United States
Novelists
Science fiction authors
Short story writers

Random Edgar Pangborn quote

30 quotes

I learned some years back that human nature is volatile stuff in a world full of lighted matches.

A Mirror for Observers (1954)

If you’re interested in ethics, you could do worse than think in terms of geological time.

A Mirror for Observers (1954)

One who can define kindness only as the absence of cruelty has surely not begun to understand the nature of either.

Good Neighbors and Other Strangers (1972)

I notice men themselves have never invented a god capable of understanding them.

A Mirror for Observers (1954)

One would think that the mere shortness of life would be a reminder that to destroy beauty is to destroy one’s own self too.

A Mirror for Observers (1954)

In politics, wishful thinking just gives the wolves a license to howl.

A Mirror for Observers (1954)

Human beings have never been very adult about cleaning up after themselves.

A Mirror for Observers (1954)

Their door closed; presently she cried out in that desired pain that is brief release from trouble.

Good Neighbors and Other Strangers (1972)

One doesn’t look for the small promises of an ethical revolution in the headlines: the ocean’s currents do not derive from the ocean’s tempests.

A Mirror for Observers (1954)

A crisis passed usually means another one approached.

Good Neighbors and Other Strangers (1972)

You never meet anything mean or cruel in music.

A Mirror for Observers (1954)

In intelligent life, human or Martian, maybe there has always been a genuine division between those who honor the individuality of others and those who are driven to control and pervert it.

A Mirror for Observers (1954)

Haven’t you stopped to wonder why men want a scapegoat? What is it, what was it ever, but a device to help them avoid looking at themselves?

A Mirror for Observers (1954)

What hurts us worst is to have our favorite self-deceptions stripped away.

Good Neighbors and Other Strangers (1972)

Namir would know all the uses of scandal and innuendo and half-truths. Strange weapons, so easy to take up, the stain indelible on user and victim.

A Mirror for Observers (1954)

They measure rank as Mussolini did, by the amount of carpet between door and desk.

A Mirror for Observers (1954)

Patience is a narcotic for the weak.

A Mirror for Observers (1954)

At one point early in his journal Dr. Bannerman describes himself as “a naturalist of the puttering type—I would rather sit on a log then write monographs: it pays off better.”

Good Neighbors and Other Strangers (1972)

Maybe the schools have come to regard education as a sort of by-product, something it would be nice to have if it isn’t too much trouble.

A Mirror for Observers (1954)

She likes to talk, but her mill often shuts off suddenly, because of a quality of hers which I find good as well as rare: I mean that when she has no more to say she doesn’t go on talking.

Good Neighbors and Other Strangers (1972)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Edgar Pangborn (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.