“Dickerson watched the telephone like a man looking at a sleeping cobra. It could spring into virulent life at any moment, bite him with its hollow fangs, flood his system with the intellectual equivalent of poison, force him to leave the tried-and-true path of safe routine and jump into the dangerous and unpredictable unknown.”
Source: Hunter/Victim (1988), Chapter 60 (p. 247)
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Robert Sheckley 114
American writer 1928–2005Related quotes

Quote of Appel in an interview with fr:Michel Ragon, 1963; as quoted in; Karel Appel, a gesture of colour, Jean-François Lyotard, (original French text of 1992 based upon intensive correspondence with Karel Appel), Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Herman Parret; University Press, Leuven, Belgium, 2009, p. 105
fr:Michel Ragon asked Appel: 'Without Cobra, would you have been what you are today?'

“Thoughts, like fleas, jump from man to man, but they don't bite everybody.”
p, 125
Unkempt Thoughts (1957)

Electromagnetic Theory (1912), Volume III; p. 1; "The Electrician" Pub. Co., London.
Context: The following story is true. There was a little boy, and his father said, “Do try to be like other people. Don’t frown.” And he tried and tried, but could not. So his father beat him with a strap; and then he was eaten up by lions.
Reader, if young, take warning by his sad life and death. For though it may be an honour to be different from other people, if Carlyle’s dictum about the 30 million be still true, yet other people do not like it. So, if you are different, you had better hide it, and pretend to be solemn and wooden-headed. Until you make your fortune. For most wooden-headed people worship money; and, really, I do not see what else they can do. In particular, if you are going to write a book, remember the wooden-headed. So be rigorous; that will cover a multitude of sins. And do not frown.