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James Blish Quotes

James Benjamin Blish was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. He is best known for his work on Star Trek. Blish also wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William Atheling Jr.

✵ 23. May 1921 – 30. July 1975

Works

The Quincunx of Time
A Case of Conscience
The Day After Judgment
James Blish: 30 quotes0 likes

Famous James Blish Quotes

“The technicians thought I was crazy. Now, five months later, I’ve proved it.”

James Blish book The Quincunx of Time

Source: The Quincunx of Time (1973), Chapter 7, “A Few Cosmic Jokes” (p. 72)

“Martel still did not want to believe in it, but brute experience of it forced him to, whatever his preferences.”

James Blish

Source: Short fiction, Midsummer Century (1972), Chapter 9 (p. 63)

““Your concept is a tremendous network of inconsistencies.”
“In what way?” the countess said, not very much interested.
“It seems to be based on reverence for the young, and an extremely patient and protective attitude toward their physical and mental welfare. Yet you make them live in these huge caves, utterly out of contact with the natural world, and you teach them to be afraid of death—which of course makes them a little insane, because there is nothing anybody can do about death. It is like teaching them to be afraid of the second law of thermodynamics, just because living matter sets that law aside for a very brief period.”

James Blish book A Case of Conscience

Source: A Case of Conscience (1958), Chapter 12 (pp. 149-150)

“I’ve already given you the whole explanation of how that came about. It happened because it was going to happen. All other explanations for anything are superfluous. All other explanations for anything.”

James Blish book The Quincunx of Time

Source: The Quincunx of Time (1973), Chapter 8, “The Courtship of Posi and Nega” (p. 89)

“Yet the closer he came to it, the more alert he felt; it was as though he were paying more and more attention to fewer and fewer things, so that at the heart of the mystery he would paradoxically be totally intent upon nothing at all.”

James Blish

Source: Short fiction, Midsummer Century (1972), Chapter 11 (p. 80)

“But now the shots began—not many, but one shot is a fusillade if there have been no shots before.”

James Blish book A Case of Conscience

Source: A Case of Conscience (1958), Chapter 18 (p. 213)

James Blish Quotes about learning

“The express pulled into the Stazione Termini in Rome five minutes ahead of schedule with a feminine shriek. Ruiz found a porter with no difficulty, tipped him the standard 100 lire for his two pieces of luggage, and gave directions. The priest’s Italian was adequate, but hardly standard; it made the facchino grin with delight every time Ruiz opened his mouth. He had learned it by reading, partly in Dante, mostly in opera libretti, and consequently what he lacked in accent he made up for in flowery phrases; he was unable to ask the way to the nearest fruit stall without sounding as though he would throw himself into the Tiber unless he got an answer.”

James Blish book A Case of Conscience

Source: A Case of Conscience (1958), Chapter 14 (p. 171)

“One thing you learn fast in the munitions business is that it’s a very good idea to stay off battlefields.”

James Blish book The Day After Judgment

Source: The Day After Judgment (1971), Chapter 11 (p. 145)

“The first thing a psychologist learns is to keep her mouth shut around laymen.”

James Blish

Source: …And All the Stars a Stage (1971; [serialized in 1960]), Chapter 13 (p. 180)

James Blish Quotes

“In his opinion, neither justice nor mercy were very closely related to love, let alone being identical with it—otherwise, why have three words instead of one? A metaphor is not a tautology.”

James Blish

Source: Short fiction, A Style in Treason (1970), Chapter 5 (p. 144)

“I suppose you burned the library—barbarians always do.”

James Blish

Source: Short fiction, A Style in Treason (1970), Chapter 9 (p. 154)

“We often resort to something called Hilbert space, which is described as n-dimensional—it’s like modern sex, any number may be played with.”

James Blish book The Quincunx of Time

Source: The Quincunx of Time (1973), Chapter 10, “Weinbaum on Sinai” (p. 116)

“He was getting to be a little old for combat or for princesses, but what was worse, he had become a lot more cynical without having become even slightly the wiser.”

James Blish book The Quincunx of Time

Prologue, “A Frame on Randolph” (p. 18)
The Quincunx of Time (1973)

“Actually, there are never motives behind actions. All actions are fixed. What we call motives evidently are rationalizations by the helpless observing consciousness, which is intelligent enough to smell an event coming—and, since it cannot avert the event, instead cooks up reasons for wanting it to happen…or ascribes it to the malice of God or man.”

James Blish book The Quincunx of Time

Source: The Quincunx of Time (1973), Chapter 8, “The Courtship of Posi and Nega” (p. 84; ellipsis in the original)

“We hear you, Father,” he said surprisingly. “Yet we sense that though what you say is the truth, it is not the whole truth.”

James Blish

Source: Short fiction, Midsummer Century (1972), Chapter 9 (p. 61)

“Now that I'm a free agent I mean to make my own choices, and explain them to nobody if that’s what pleases me.”

James Blish book A Case of Conscience

Source: A Case of Conscience (1958), Chapter 17 (p. 206)

“In retrospect, each of the steps toward this abyss seemed irrevocable, and yet they had all been so small!”

James Blish book A Case of Conscience

Source: A Case of Conscience (1958), Chapter 13 (p. 158)

““Something tells me that this isn’t going to be as simple as it looks.”
“What is?” Wald said, raising his eyebrows.
“Nothing, of course. But hope springs eternal in the human spleen.””

James Blish book The Quincunx of Time

Source: The Quincunx of Time (1973), Chapter 7, “A Few Cosmic Jokes” (p. 77)

“No exercise of will can make any of us other than what we are, or more than marginally better than who we are.”

James Blish book The Quincunx of Time

Source: The Quincunx of Time (1973), Chapter 10, “Weinbaum on Sinai” (pp. 118-119)

“Telepathy and intelligence appear to be incompatible from the evolutionary point of view—if you’ve got one, you don’t seem to need the other, and they may even be evolutionary enemies.”

James Blish

Source: Short fiction, Midsummer Century (1972), Chapter 10 (p. 78)

“The tribesmen understand this very well, although they would not describe it in the same terms I have. It is simply a working part of their lives. Do you think they would continue to consult me if they found that the advice that I gave them did not work? They are uncivilized, but they are not insane.”

James Blish

Source: Short fiction, Midsummer Century (1972), Chapter 3 (p. 21)

“The motto of the bureau,” Weinbaum said, “is, ‘sometimes something works.’”

James Blish book The Quincunx of Time

Source: The Quincunx of Time (1973), Chapter 7, “A Few Cosmic Jokes” (p. 75)

“Never assume that any fact is useless until it is so proven.”

James Blish

Source: Short fiction, Midsummer Century (1972), Chapter 9 (p. 62)

“We cannot count upon the secret being kept. It’s a fact of nature, and as somebody or other remarked long ago, Nature is a blabbermouth; ask the right question, and you’ll always get the answer.”

James Blish book The Quincunx of Time

Source: The Quincunx of Time (1973), Chapter 9, “A Comity of Futures” (p. 105)

“Something tells me that this isn’t going to be as simple as it looks.”

James Blish book The Quincunx of Time

“What is?” Wald said, raising his eyebrows.
“Nothing, of course. But hope springs eternal in the human spleen.”
Source: The Quincunx of Time (1973), Chapter 7, “A Few Cosmic Jokes” (p. 77)

“Your concept is a tremendous network of inconsistencies.”

James Blish book A Case of Conscience

“In what way?” the countess said, not very much interested.
“It seems to be based on reverence for the young, and an extremely patient and protective attitude toward their physical and mental welfare. Yet you make them live in these huge caves, utterly out of contact with the natural world, and you teach them to be afraid of death—which of course makes them a little insane, because there is nothing anybody can do about death. It is like teaching them to be afraid of the second law of thermodynamics, just because living matter sets that law aside for a very brief period.
Source: A Case of Conscience (1958), Chapter 12 (pp. 149-150)

“One death is as good as another, if death is what you are courting.”

James Blish

Source: …And All the Stars a Stage (1971; [serialized in 1960]), Chapter 14 (p. 186)

“Perhaps indeed Jehovah is not dead,
But mere retir’d, withdrawn or otherwise
Contracted hath, as Zohar subtle saith,
His Essence Infinite; and, Epicurean, waits
The outcome vast with vast indifference.”

James Blish book The Day After Judgment

Source: The Day After Judgment (1971), Chapter 13 (p. 161)

“A common thief with a gun in his hand isn’t half as dangerous as an engineer with a stick of dynamite.”

James Blish book Black Easter

Source: Black Easter (1968), Chapter 12 (p. 110)

“Munitions and magic are circles that don’t intersect very effectively.”

James Blish book Black Easter

Source: Black Easter (1968), Chapter 2 (p. 36)

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