
"I think so-"
"Shut up! That was not a question!"
Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Sir Thursday (2006), p. 124.
Sketchbook 1946-1949
"I think so-"
"Shut up! That was not a question!"
Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Sir Thursday (2006), p. 124.
Sweet Morality (p. 222)
Source: The Immortalization Commission: The Strange Quest to Cheat Death (2011)
“The psychology of committees is a special case of the psychology of mobs.”
The Decline and Fall of Science (1976)
“Design is really a special case of problem solving.”
Source: Lateral Thinking : Creativity Step by Step (1970), p. 198; Cited in: Eddie Norman, Urry (1995) Advanced design and technology. p. 65-66.
Context: Design is really a special case of problem solving. One wants to bring about a desired state of affairs. Occasionally one wants to remedy some fault but more usually one wants to bring about something new. For that reason design is more open ended than problem solving. It requires more creativity. It is not so much a matter of linking up a clearly defined objective with a clearly defined starting position (as in problem solving) but more a matter of starting out from a general position in the direction of a general objective
“Everything looks like a failure in the middle.”
Slightly edited version of text in The Change Masters, Simon and Shuster, 1987
“Our brains deal exclusively with special-case experiences.”
1960s, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1963)
Context: Our brains deal exclusively with special-case experiences. Only our minds are able to discover the generalized principles operating without exception in each and every special-experience case which if detected and mastered will give knowledgeable advantage in all instances.