36 quotes
The large picture of the heron on the far wall began to fade. When it was gone it was replaced by the head of a handsome man with the falsely serious stare in his eyes that is cultivated by politicians, faith healers, and evangelists.
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1963)
He carried his bag and was accompanied by a nurse with a deliberately impassive face—the sort of face that seemed to say, “I don’t care what you die of, I intend to be efficient about my part of it.”
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1963)
Whatever Jesus was, he was a thing called a “great man.” I am not certain I like the idea of “great men”; it makes me uncomfortable. “Great men” often have had very bloody plans for mankind.
Mockingbird (1980)
“We won’t necessarily become extinct. Disarmament is being negotiated. Not all of us are insane.”
“But most of you are. Enough of you are—it only requires a few insane ones, in the right places.
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1963)
“Would you show me how to make an omelette?”
She looked shocked, and said nothing.
Then from the sink the other woman’s voice said, “Men don’t cook.”
The woman beside me hesitated a moment, and then said softly, “This man is different, Mary. He’s a Reader.”
Mockingbird (1980)
Biff is really stupid in most ways. It’s just that she’s very real—is very much a cat—and that makes her seem intelligent to you. I can read her whole mind at a glance, and there’s very little there. But she feels good. She would not want to be anything other than a cat.
Mockingbird (1980)
Holy Bible begins: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” It does not give the century of the “beginning,” nor is it clear who “God” is, or was. I am not certain whether Holy Bible is a book of history or maintenance or poetry. It names many strange people who do not seem real.
Mockingbird (1980)
All day yesterday she read a new kind of writing called poems. Some of them she read aloud. In places they were like chess—incomprehensible—and in other places they said strange and interesting things.
Mockingbird (1980)
They had told us how important courts were for protecting our sacred rights to Privacy and Individuality, and how helpful a judge could be, but you somehow got the idea that it was a good idea to stay away from courts altogether.
Mockingbird (1980)
The sky at the top of the gray ocean has become much lighter now. The sun is about to rise. I will end this recording for now and stop the bus and walk outside and watch the sun rise over the ocean.
My God, the world can be beautiful.
Mockingbird (1980)
We had never developed a sense of history as such; all we knew, if we ever thought about it, was that there had been others before us and that we were better than they. But no one was ever encouraged to think about anything outside of himself. “Don’t ask; relax.”
Mockingbird (1980)
Weren’t there naive arts and sophisticated arts? And corrupt arts as well? And might that not be true of the sciences too? Could chemistry be more corrupt than botany? But that wasn’t so. It was the uses, the ends…
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1963)
Noticing and thinking are sometimes a strain and a bafflement and I wonder if the Designers were aware of that when they made it almost impossible for the ordinary citizen to make use of a recorder. Or when they had us all taught that earliest learned wisdom: “When in doubt, forget it.”
Mockingbird (1980)
Bob seems to know almost everything; but he doesn’t know when or why people stopped reading. “Most people are too lazy,” he said. “They only want distractions.”
Mockingbird (1980)
My God, the things I have read and learned since I left Ohio! And they have changed me so much I hardly recognize myself. Just knowing that there has been a past to human life and getting a slight sense of what that past was like have altered my mind and my behavior beyond recognition.
Mockingbird (1980)
Reading is the subtle and thorough sharing of the ideas and feelings by underhanded means. It is a gross invasion of Privacy and a direct violation of the Constitutions of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth ages. The Teaching of Reading is equally a crime against Privacy and Personhood. One to five years on each count.
Mockingbird (1980)