“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)

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American author 1921–1975

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