Connections (1979), 1 - The Trigger Effect
Context: And that's why following the trail from the past up to the emergence of the modern technology that surrounds us in our daily lives, and affects our lives, is rather like a detective story. Because, at no time in the past, did anybody have anything to do with the business of inventing or changing things, ever know what the full effect of his actions would be. He just went ahead and did what he did for his own reasons, like we do. That's how change comes about. And it's like a detective story because if you follow the trail from the past up to a modern man-made object, the story is full of sudden twists and false clues and guesswork, and you never know where the story is heading until the very last minute.
Context: I would say it was a pretty safe bet, that the one magic wish most people would like to be granted would be to be able to see into the future. Think what it would mean. And backing the right horse! But we can't. We have to guess about tomorrow and we have to act on that guess, and it's never been any different. And that's why following the trail from the past up to the emergence of the modern technology that surrounds us in our daily lives, and affects our lives, is rather like a detective story. Because, at no time in the past, did anybody have anything to do with the business of inventing or changing things, ever know what the full effect of his actions would be. He just went ahead and did what he did for his own reasons, like we do. That's how change comes about. And it's like a detective story because if you follow the trail from the past up to a modern man-made object, the story is full of sudden twists and false clues and guesswork, and you never know where the story is heading until the very last minute.
“You have a tendency, Hastings, to prefer the least likely. That, no doubt, is from reading too many detective stories.”
Source: Peril at End House
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Agatha Christie 320
English mystery and detective writer 1890–1976Related quotes
“Too many theorists have a tendency to ignore facts that contradict their convictions.”
[Maurice Allais, L'anisotropie de l'espace. La nécessaire révision de certains postulats des théories contemporaines. Les données de l'expérience, Editions Clément Juglar, Paris, 1997, 640, 2-908735-09-1]
Original: L'anisotropie de l'espace. La nécessaire révision de certains postulats des théories contemporaines. Les données de l'expérience.
This is in fact something an admirer said, which Christie quoted with disapproval in LIFE magazine (14 May 1956), p. 98
Misattributed
“The story of the Kelly system is a story of secrets - or if you prefer, a story of entropy.”
Part One, Entropy, Minus Sign, p. 76
Fortune's Formula (2005)
Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 38
Context: There are many persons of combative tendencies, who read for ammunition, and dig out of the Bible iron for balls. They read, and they find nitre and charcoal and sulphur for powder. They read, and they find cannon. They read, and they make portholes and embrasures. And if a man does not believe as they do, they look upon him as an enemy, and let fly the Bible at him to demolish him. So men turn the word of God into a vast arsenal, filled with all manner of weapons, offensive and defensive.