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Chocky

by John Wyndham · 1968

Matthew, they thought, was just going through a phase of talking to himself. And, like many parents, they waited for him to get over it, but it started to get worse. Matthew's conversations with himself grew more and more… more

13 quotes ★ 3.87 (12,382) Science Fiction

Quotes from the Book

It was all conveyed by the nicest, almost indetectably refined blend of sympathy and bitchiness...
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And your oil engines are just a deplorable perversion – dirty, noisy, poisonous, and the cars you drive with them are barbarous, dangerous...” Chocky in "Chocky
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Reality is relative. Devils, evil spirits, witches and so on became real enough to the people who believed in them. Just as God is to people who believe in Him. When people live their lives by their beliefs objective reality is almost irrelevant.
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When people live their lives by their beliefs objective reality is almost irrelevant. ‘That’s
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Babies, in a world that already has far too many, remain desirable.
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Your Tim is so unmistakably a healthy extravert type. Mens stulta in corpore sano, and all that.” “Exactly,” she agreed.
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There are fears that we would strongly assert, and honestly believe, we have outgrown which, nevertheless, still lie dormant in all of us, ready to be aroused by a careless, unexpected word used at a critical moment.
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Like all parents she is dichotomous, what she really wants is a child genius who is perfectly normal.
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I'm not bigoted enough to twist facts to suit what I've been taught.
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You have not done badly with electricity in a hundred years. And you did well with steam in quite a short time. But all that is so cumbersome, so inefficient. And your oil engines are just a deplorable perversion - dirty, noisy, poisonous, and the cars you drive with them are barbarous, dangerous… You should be employing your resources, while you still have the, to tap and develop the use of power which is not finite. ..I sometimes
1
I felt a poignant memory of those desolate patches of disillusion which are the shocks of growing up. The discovery that one lived in a world which could pay honour where honour was not due, was just such a one. The values were rocked, the dependable was suddenly flimsy, the solid became hollow, gold turned to brass, there was no integrity anywhere …
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I'm not bigoted enough to twist the facts to suit what I've been taught.
1
Como la mente no tiene masa, no utiliza tiempo en desplazarse.
1

About John Wyndham

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About the book

Matthew, they thought, was just going through a phase of talking to himself. And, like many parents, they waited for him to get over it, but it started to get worse. Matthew's conversations with himself grew more and more intense—it was like listening to one end of a telephone conversation while someone argued, cajoled and reasoned with another person you couldn't hear.

Then Matthew started doing things he couldn't do before, like counting in binary-code mathematics. So he told them about Chocky—the person who lived in his head.

Cover Artist: Harry Willock.

Book details

First published
1968
Goodreads rating
3.87 (12k ratings)

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