Gregory Benford: Thing

Gregory Benford is Science fiction author and astrophysicist. Explore interesting quotes on thing.
Gregory Benford: 174 quotes0 likes

“Organic forms are in the universe of things and also reside in the universe of essences. There we cannot go.”

Gregory Benford book In the Ocean of Night

The Snark, p. 195
In the Ocean of Night (1977)
Context: Organic forms are in the universe of things and also reside in the universe of essences. There we cannot go. … You are a spontaneous product of the universe of things. We are not. This seems to give you … windows. It was difficult for me to monitor your domestic transmissions, they fill up with branches, spontaneous paths, nuances…

“Life was growing and spreading here the way a disease propagates and eats and in the eating must kill. There should be something more, he thought. A kind of being might come into the universe that did not want to finally eat everything or to command all or to fill every niche and site with its own precious self. It would be a strange thing, with enough of the brute biology in it to have the quick, darting sense of survival. But it would also have to carry something of the machine in it, the passive and accepting quality of duty, of waiting, and of thought that went beyond the endless eating or the fear of dying. To such a thing the universe would not be a battleground but a theater, where eternal dramas were acted out and it was best to be in the audience. Perhaps evolution, which had been at the beginning a blind force that pushed against everything, could find a path to that shambling, curiously lasting state.”

Gregory Benford

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

“That thing doesn’t care about you. It won’t reward you when you take risks. It is simply indifferent. That’s the fact about it that most never learn. They hate it and fear it and finally ignore it. Because of that. It would be easier if it hated us. Maybe even if it hunted us. But it doesn’t care. Remember.”

Gregory Benford

Part 2 “Aleph”, Chapter 2 (p. 51)
Against Infinity (1983)

“No matter how much you plan for it, the real thing seems curiously, well, unreal.”

Gregory Benford book Timescape

Source: Timescape (1980), Chapter 37 (p. 395)

“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)

“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)

“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.”

Gregory Benford Artifact

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

“Somehow to them, the press was always the judge of things scientific.”

Gregory Benford book Timescape

Source: Timescape (1980), Chapter 17 (p. 236, concerning cranks)