Gregory Benford: Trending quotes

“I would have to look, try to find a bridge that would make plausible what I knew but could scarcely prove. The standards of science are austere, unforgiving—and who would have it differently? I would have to hedge, to take one step back for each two forward, to compare and suggest and contrast, always sticking close to the data. And despite what I thought I knew now, the data would have to lead, they would have to show the way.”

Part 2, Chapter 6 (p. 76)
Artifact (1985)

“Hubris. They disliked questions unless there were clear answers. They believed so much in their method that they conjured up certainty out of undeniable risk.”

Exposures, p. 244
In Alien Flesh (1986)

““The peers just fill the air with their speeches.”
“And from what I've seen, vice versa.””

Part 6, Chapter 6 (p. 349)
Artifact (1985)

“Thunder impresses, but it’s lightning does the work.”

Source: Timescape (1980), Chapter 5 (p. 46)

“Archeology is mostly a process of making associations between objects, and every discovery opens up possible resonances with things we already have. Sometimes, simply wandering through a museum or a site can open your eyes.”

Time’s Rub, p. 253 (Originally published in Asimov’s, April 1985)
In Alien Flesh (1986)

“This was what never failed to stir her—the unfathomable gulf between today’s thinking and the way the ancients thought. They were truly alien, not merely innocent agrarians with a foolish faith.”

Part 3, Chapter 1 (p. 107)
Artifact (1985)

Part 5, Chapter 4 (p. 246)
Artifact (1985)

“Once introduced into this world, life would never leave—there was no end to the explosive, consuming, voracious lust of long chain molecules to link and match and make of themselves yet more and more and again more.”

Part 5, Chapter 7 (p. 270)
Artifact (1985)

“At least being prosperous set one apart in England; here it guaranteed nothing, not even taste.”

Part 6 “Aleph Null”, Chapter 4 (p. 226)
Against Infinity (1983)

“Modern economics and the welfare state borrowed heavily on the future.”

Source: Timescape (1980), Chapter 11 (p. 134, concerning the USA)

“There was something about such reflex stupidity that never failed to irritate him.”

Source: Timescape (1980), Chapter 43 (p. 445)

“A science fiction writer is—or should be—constrained by what is, or logically might be. That can mean simple fidelity to facts (which, in science, are always more important than theories—though Lord knows the two help shape each other, undermining the convenient, complacent separation of observer and observed). To me it also means heeding the authentic, the actual and concrete. Bad fiction uses the glossy generality; good writing needs the smattering of detail, the unrelenting busy mystery of the real.”

Source: Timescape (1980), Chapter 17 (p. 231)

“They will do anything for the worker, except become one.”

Afterword to Exposures, p. 246
In Alien Flesh (1986)

“Maybe is not a theory, you know, it is merely maybe.”

Source: Timescape (1980), Chapter 5 (p. 46, concerning the peers)

“Nothing could be sure it was itself the original. So the only intelligent course lay in enjoying whatever life a being felt—living like a mortal, in the moment.”

Part 4, Chapter 6 (p. 203)
Artifact (1985)

“Still, Claire hated Charlotte Brontë’s comment that she would have given all her talent to be beautiful. That condemned you always to play somebody else’s game—and, when your looks failed—finally to lose.”

Time’s Rub, p. 261
In Alien Flesh (1986)

“Major Sánchez grunted. “Nice word, ‘trivial.’ Means you got it—cojones—you got no worry. If you don’t—””

Part 5, Chapter 4 (p. 245)
Artifact (1985)

“She stood up. “Professional? Ha! My father used to say, you have to be able to tell a tracheotomist from a cutthroat. Well, I can.””

Part 1 “Beyond Sidon”, Chapter 2 (p. 12)
Against Infinity (1983)