John Wyndham Quotes

“The law punishes the criminal after he has been successful: it is no use to us.”

The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), ch 19 - p.200 [Joseph]

“The dove is not a coward to fear the hawk; it is simply wise.”

The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), ch 18 - p.182 [Eric]

“Some quotations," said Zellaby, "are greatly improved by lack of context.”

The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), ch 16 - p.147 [Zellaby]

“And we danced, on the brink of an unknown future, to an echo from a vanished past.”

Source: The Midwich Cuckoos

“Why should I? I've done nothing to be ashamed of. I am not ashamed - I am only beaten”

Source: The Day of the Triffids

“When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.”

Source: The Chrysalids

John Wyndham Quotes

“It must be, I thought, one of the race's most persistent and comforting hallucinations to trust that "it can't happen here" -- that one's own time and place is beyond cataclysm.”

Source: Book opening line. (Ch.1, p.7) [Page numbers per the Penguin Books paperback, 1954 reprint.]

“The essential quality of life is living' the essential quality of living is change; change is evolution; and we are part of it.”

Source: The Day of the Triffids

“If you run away from a thing just because you don't like it, you don't like what you find either.”

Source: The Chrysalids

“There was often a great deal of grown-up fuss that seemed disproportionate to causes.”

Source: The Chrysalids

“If you want to keep alive in the jungle, you must live as the jungle does.”

Source: Ch 1 - p.391, 392 [Page numbers per the Michael Joseph "The John Wyndham Omnibus" hardback 1964. 'The Chrysalids' features at pp.383-532

“The wise lamb does not enrage the lion, it placates him, plays for time, and hopes for the best.”

Source: The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), Ch 21 - p.220 [Zellaby]

“And, after all, what is a planet but an island in space?”

The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), Ch 21 - p.213 [Zellaby]

“Nobody, nobody but a child, or a child-minded person, expects life to be fair.”

The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), Ch 19 - p.205 [Zellaby]

“We've got it all there in the books if we take the trouble to find out about it.”

The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), ch 9 - p.70 [Angela] [Page numbers per the Penguin Books paperback, 1982 reprint.]

“You can't drive a flock of sheep to market in a dead straight line, but there are ways of getting 'em there.”

The Day of the Triffids (1951), ch 12 - p.204

“You know perfectly well that women can and do - or rather did - handle the most complicated and delicate machines when they took the trouble to understand them. What generally happens is that they're too lazy to take the trouble unless they have to.”

The Day of the Triffids (1951), ch 10 - p.179

“There's a whole lot of people don't seem to understand that you have to talk to a man in his own language before he'll take you seriously.”

The Day of the Triffids (1951), Ch 10 - p.175

“She rummaged in a battered bag beside her, brought out a dirty spoon, and began to taste the beans as if they were one of the jams of paradise.”

The Day of the Triffids (1951), ch 9 - p.162