Destination Unknown

There speaks the passion and the rebellion that go with red hair. My second wife had red hair. She was a beautiful woman, and she loved me. Strange, is it not? I have always admired red-haired women. Your hair is very beautiful. There are other things I like about you. Your spirit, your courage; the fact that you have a mind of your own. ~Mr. Aristides

I don't go in for being sorry for people. For one thing it's insulting. One is only sorry for people if they are sorry for themselves. Self-pity is the biggest stumbling block in our world today. ~Jessop

The trouble in this life is that you never really know where you're going. ~Andy Peters

One must have common sense, nothing is permanent, nothing endures. I have come to the conclusion that this place is run by a madman. A madman, let me tell you, can be very logical. If you are rich and logical and also mad, you can succeed for a very long time in living out your illusion. But in the end....in the end this will break up. Because, you see, it is not reasonable what happens here! That which is not reasonable must always pay the reckoning in the end. ~Dr. Barron

W: Nobody's so gullible as scientists. All the phony mediums say so. Can't quite see why. J: Oh, yes, it would be so. They think they know, you see. That's always dangerous. ~Wharton; Jessop

Why do you decry the world we live in? There are good people in it. Isn't muddle a better breeding ground for kindliness and individuality than a world order that's imposed, a world order that may be right today and wrong tomorrow? I would rather have a world of kindly, faulty, human beings, than a world of superior robots who've said goodbye to pity and understanding and sympathy.

E: When one has at last reached freedom, can one even contemplate going back? HC: But if it is not possible to go back, or to choose to go back, then it is not freedom! ~Ericsson; Hilary Craven

This was genius at close quarters, and genius had that something above normal in it that was a great strain upon the ordinary mind and feeling. All five were different from each other, yet each had that curious quality of burning intensity, the single-mindedness of purpose that made such a terrifying impression. She did not know whether it were a quality of brain or rather a quality of outlook, of intensity. But each of them, she thought, was in his or her way a passionate idealist.

I did not really seek liberty. I am a civilised man. The civilised man knows there is no such thing. Only the younger and cruder nations put the word Liberty on their banner. There must always be a planned framework of security. And the essence of civilisation is that the way of life should be a moderate one.

That, of course, depends entirely on who you mean by 'they'. It's a very vague term. Who is or are 'they'? Is there such a thing, are there such persons as 'they'? We don't know. But I can tell you this. If the most popular explanation of 'they' is accepted, then these people work in very close, self-contained cells. They do that for their own security. ~Jessop

HC: You think I shall differently tomorrow? [about suicide] J: People do. HC: Yes, perhaps. If you're doing things in a mood of hot despair. But when it's cold despair, it's different. I've nothing to live for, you see. ~Hilary Craven; Jessop

There are other things I like about you. Your spirit, your courage; the fact that you have a mind of your own

Mrs. Baker's social manner was almost robotlike in its perfection. All her comments and remarks were natural, normal, everyday currency, but one had a suspicion that the whole thing was like an actor playing a part for perhaps the seven hundredth time. It was an automatic performance, completely divorced from what Mrs. Baker might really have been thinking or feeling.

Nobody's so gullible as the scientist," he said. "All the phony mediums say so. Can't quite see why." The other smiled, a very tired smile. "Oh, yes," he said, "it would be so. They think they know, you see. That's always dangerous. Now, our kind are different. We're humble-minded men. We don't expect to save the world, only pick up one or two broken pieces and remove a monkey wrench or two when it's jamming up the works.

Christianity has made fools of women,’ she said. ‘Such a worship of weakness, such snivelling humiliation! Pagan women had strength. They rejoiced and conquered! And in order to conquer, no discomfort is unbearable. Nothing is too much to suffer.

Food and money and luxury and women aren’t everything, you know.

He smiled, but not a very pleasant smile. Faintly catlike.

His enthusiasm was of a contagious kind.

His eyes went on and met the eyes of a man as old as himself, cold, legal eyes.

Yet, even though he himself escaped unscathed, it was nevertheless defeat.

They were two people playing a part with an undefined menace hanging over them, as it were.

Coolly and calmly she appraised what she saw. A nervous good-looking man of thirty-odd who was badly frightened—a man nearly at the end of his tether—a man who had, presumably, come here full of high hopes and had been reduced—to this.

He gave her a discreet smile; it was a smile, she noticed, that did not touch his cold pale eyes.

And so she had booked her journey to this place which had no associations with the past, a place quite new to her which had the qualities she loved so much: sunlight, pure air and the strangeness of new people and things. Here, she had thought, things will be different. But they were not different.

To Hilary it all had an unreal quality. It was as though she was still in a dream, mercifully protected from contact with reality. This was only a delay, only a matter of waiting. She was still on her journey—her journey of escape. She was still getting away from it all, still going towards that spot where her life would start again.

This was a man who had complete command of himself, a man with a poker face who knew what he was doing and why, and who would not be easily tricked or betrayed into saying more than he meant to say.

I’m one of those people who like a real packed day—everything planned and arranged. Every minute filled.” In Hilary’s present mood, this sounded like a foretaste of hell, but she congratulated Mrs. Calvin Baker on her energy.

Civilized misery, she thought, is the worse misery. Grey and hopeless. But now she thought, I shall escape.