Quotes from book
Greybeard

Name: Greybeard
Author: Brian W. Aldiss

Greybeard is a science fiction novel by British author Brian Aldiss, published in 1964.

“The hardship of it was a pleasure. Life was a pleasure; he looked back at its moments, many of them as shrouded in mist as the opposite bank of the Thames. Objectively, many of them held only misery, fear, confusion; but afterward, and even at the time, he had known an exhilaration stronger than the misery, fear, or confusion. A fragment of belief came to him from another epoch: Cogito ergo sum. For him that had not been true; his truth had been: Sentio ergo sum. I feel, so I exist. He enjoyed this fearful, miserable, confused life, and not only because it made more sense than nonlife. He could never explain that to anyone.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 3 “The River: Swifford Fair” (p. 75)

“It’s a national failing to think of politics as something that goes on in Parliament. It isn’t; it’s something that goes on inside us.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 2 “Cowley” (p. 47)

“Perhaps the first fire, the first tool, the first wheel, the first carving in a limestone cave, had each possessed a symbolic rather than a practical value, had each been pressed to serve distortion rather than reality. It was a sort of madness that had driven man from his humble sites on the edges of the woods into towns and cities, into arts and wars, into religious crusades, into martyrdom and prostitution, into dyspepsia and fasting, into love and hatred, into this present cul-de-sac; it had all come about in pursuit of symbols. In the beginning was the symbol, and darkness was over the face of the Earth.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 3 (p. 91)

“One of the characteristics of age was that all avenues of talk led backward in time.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 1 “The River: Sparcot” (p. 21)

“I’ve no objection to morality, except that it’s obsolete.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 4 (p. 122)

“However you envisage your role in life, all you can do is perform it as best you can.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 7 (p. 203)

“That’s one thing about these religious boys—they reckon that if they are on God’s side, then the enemy must be on the devil’s, and so they have no qualms about giving it to ’em hot and strong.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 4 (p. 112)

“Relax, enjoy yourself. Have another drink. It’s patriotic to overconsume.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 4 (p. 121)

“Let’s have a toast—to the future generation of consumers, however many heads or assholes they have!”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 4 (p. 112)

“What were several fewer species of animals compared with a hundred-mile advance and another medal on another general?”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 4 “Washington” (p. 110)

“Sounds to me as if you want journalists,” Timberlane said.
“No, sir, we require steady men with integrity. This is not a scoop, it’s a way of life.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 4 (p. 115)

“All over the world there must be far-reaching changes in animal behavior and habitat; if only one could have another life in which to chart it all…. Ah, well, that’s not a fruitful thing to wish, is it?”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 5 “The River: Oxford” (p. 147)

“If more people had put their fellow human beings before abstractions last century, we shouldn’t be where we are now.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 7 “The River: The End” (p. 190)

“The shuffle only demonstrated people’s fatuous belief in a political cure for a human condition.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 6 “London” (p. 170)

“All of which pointed to a moral that they should have learned long before, Arthur thought: Never trust a bunch of lousy politicians to do your thinking for you.”

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 6 (p. 171)

““Are you a religious man, Joe?”
Flitch pulled a face. “I leaves that sort of thing to women.””

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 5 (p. 149)

“As Flitch dryly remarked when Greybeard commented on the graveyard, “Ah, they keep a-planting of ’em, but there ain’t any more of ’em growing up.””

Brian W. Aldiss book Greybeard

Source: Greybeard (1964), Chapter 5 (p. 148)

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