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“All right, he thought, so the details were not perfect. But maybe, in a sense, that was part of the magic, too.”

Gregory Benford book Timescape

Source: Timescape (1980), Chapter 16 (p. 229)

“It was one thing to be instantly attracted to a woman, and another to like her independence, the way she took no notice of what he thought of her, one way or the other. She was indeed a modern woman—not aggressive, yet not submissive. A self-possessed apartness, a lack of cling…
Yes, that was what held his attention: her reserve. The promise of depths you could not guess merely by seeing her in a swimsuit.”

Gregory Benford Artifact

Part 2, Chapter 6 (p. 80; ellipsis represents a minor elision of narration)
Artifact (1985)

“Religions do not teach doubt.”

Gregory Benford book Timescape

Source: Timescape (1980), Chapter 27 (p. 322)

“The past was a jigsaw puzzle and you never had all the pieces.”

Gregory Benford Artifact

Part 1, Chapter 1 (p. 10)
Artifact (1985)

“Yes, perhaps that was it. For decades now the picture of the world painted by the scientists had become strange, distant, unbelievable. Far easier, then, to ignore it than try to understand. Things were too complicated. Why bother? Turn on the telly, luv. Right.”

Gregory Benford book Timescape

Source: Timescape (1980), Chapter 11 (p. 146)

““We will be just like the USA. Only we will be more honest.”
”We’ve got two parties.”
“No you do not. You have only the party of the banks, of the money men, and they divide it into two pieces for your voting.””

Gregory Benford Artifact

Part 2, Chapter 7 (p. 86)
Artifact (1985)

“Man doesn’t have to take a gamble just ’cause it’s there. You got to learn that.”

Gregory Benford

Part 2 “Aleph”, Chapter 3 (p. 68)
Against Infinity (1983)

“Every boy knows he is immortal, but his parents, they are not so sure.”

Gregory Benford

Part 2 “Aleph”, Chapter 1 (p. 45)
Against Infinity (1983)

“But the answers come when they will, one piece at a time.”

Gregory Benford

Exposures, p. 232 (Originally published in Asimov’s, July 6, 1981)
In Alien Flesh (1986)

“The personal was, compared with the tides of great nations, a bothersome detail.”

Gregory Benford book Timescape

Source: Timescape (1980), Chapter 43 (p. 441)

“Science is like literature, a continuing dialog among diverse and conflicting voices, no one ever wholly right or wholly wrong, but a steady conversation forever provisional and personal and living.”

Gregory Benford book Timescape

Afterword (p. 498)
Timescape (1980)

“But no, the friend’s indictment was off target; he simply liked them tall, as long as they didn’t slump down in a forlorn effort to appear shorter. It seemed obvious to him that no woman looked good trying to be something she wasn’t.”

Gregory Benford Artifact

Part 2, Chapter 1 (p. 42)
Artifact (1985)

““You’ll never get it to follow orders.”
“Slaves follow orders, Colonel. You want something done a slave can’t, you don’t ask for a slave to do it.””

Gregory Benford

Part 2 “Aleph”, Chapter 3 (p. 68)
Against Infinity (1983)

““Free will again,” Cathy said.
“Or free won’t,” Peterson said mildly.”

Gregory Benford book Timescape

Source: Timescape (1980), Chapter 23 (p. 291)

“Professors everywhere deplored examinations as an archaic technique, a fossil that recalled little red schoolhouses and memorizing the capitals of all the states. Regular progress and daily diligence mattered more, they felt, not an hour spent compressing months of learning onto a few sheets of paper. Far better to stress homework, classroom participation and the professor’s judgment. Regrettably, the large size of classes, and the requirements of society itself for pseudo-objective standards kept the exam structure firmly in place.”

Gregory Benford Artifact

Part 4, Chapter 1 (pp. 155-156)
Artifact (1985)

“Just because something’s crazy, doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

Gregory Benford Artifact

Part 5, Chapter 1 (p. 228)
Artifact (1985)

“You got to learn to wait people out. Hear what they got to say. Not enough to have a majority rule, y’know. Otherwise, the minority won’t be convinced and they won’t support the plan. No point havin’ people at your elbow who’re against what you’re doin’. So we just got to talk it out Quaker-style till ever’body agrees. More efficient in the long run.”

Gregory Benford

Part 5 “Coming Home”, Chapter 3 (p. 179)
Against Infinity (1983)

“Must admit it felt good. First time in years anybody ever admitted I was right.”

Gregory Benford

To the Storming Gulf, p. 142
In Alien Flesh (1986)

“Any technology that does not appear magical is insufficiently advanced.”

Gregory Benford book Foundation's Fear

This is derived from the third of Arthur C. Clarke's three laws : "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." There are other variants which had inverted this including one known as Gehm's corollary http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/cyc/l/law.htm, published several years earlier : "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced." The earliest variant seems to be "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology." It has been called "Niven's Law" and attributed to Larry Niven by some, and to Terry Pratchett by others, but without any citation of an original source in either case — the earliest occurrence yet located is an anonymous one in Keystone Folklore (1984) by the Pennsylvania Folklore Society. <br class="br">Foundation's Fear (1997)

“It was getting the results that made science worth doing; the accolades were a thin, secondary pleasure.”

Gregory Benford book Timescape

Source: Timescape (1980), Chapter 39 (p. 411)