“Be grateful that you only see the outward man. Be grateful that you never see the passions, the hatreds, the jealousies, the malice, the sicknesses... Be grateful you rarely see the frightening truth in people.”
― Alfred Bester, quote from The Demolished Man
“Eight, sir; seven, sir;
Six, sir; five, sir;
Four, sir; Three, sir;
Two, sir; one!
Tenser, said the Tensor.
Tenser, said the Tensor.
Tension, apprehension,
And dissension have begun.”
― Alfred Bester, quote from The Demolished Man
“The mind is the reality. You are what you think.”
― Alfred Bester, quote from The Demolished Man
“If a man's got talent and guts to buck society, he's obviously above average. You want to hold on to him. You straighten him out and turn him into a plus value. Why throw him away? Do that enough and all you've got left are the sheep.”
― Alfred Bester, quote from The Demolished Man
“I'm treating you like a relative. I don't pay enough for the privilege.”
― Alfred Bester, quote from The Demolished Man
“Now don't warp your orbit, Mac.”
― Alfred Bester, quote from The Demolished Man
“Listen,” he cried in exaltation. “Listen, normals! You must learn what it is. You must learn how it is. You must tear the barriers down. You must tear the veils away. We see the truth you cannot see … That there is nothing in man but love and faith, courage and kindness, generosity and sacrifice. All else is only the barrier of your blindness. One day we’ll all be mind to mind and heart to heart …”
― Alfred Bester, quote from The Demolished Man
“It was not exasperation.... It was anger for the relentless force of evolution that insisted on endowing man with increased powers without removing the vestigial vices that prevented him from using them.”
― Alfred Bester, quote from The Demolished Man
“Century also had shelves of obsolete printed books.”
― Alfred Bester, quote from The Demolished Man
“IN THE ENDLESS universe there has been nothing new, nothing different. What has appeared exceptional to the minute mind of man has been inevitable to the infinite Eye of God. This strange second in a life, that unusual event, those remarkable coincidences of environment, opportunity, and encounter … all of them have been reproduced over and over on the planet of a sun whose galaxy revolves once in two hundred million years and has revolved nine times already. There has been joy. There will be joy again. the”
― Alfred Bester, quote from The Demolished Man
“Listen, normals! You must learn what it is. You must learn how it is. You must tear the barriers down. You must tear the veils away. We see the truth you cannot see... That there is nothing in man but love and faith, courage and kindness, generosity and sacrifice. All else is only the barrier of your blindness. One day we'll all be mind to mind and heart to heart...”
― Alfred Bester, quote from The Demolished Man
“Be grateful you’re not a peeper, sir. Be grateful that you only see the outward man. Be grateful that you never see the passions, the hatreds, the jealousies, the malice, the sicknesses … Be grateful you rarely see the frightening truth in people.”
― Alfred Bester, quote from The Demolished Man
“LABİRENTİ ORTADAN KALDIR.
KARMAŞIK YOLLARI YIK.
BİLMECEYİ SİL.
(x² o y³ uzay/d! zaman)
DAĞIT
(eylemler, ifadeler, etkenler, bölümler, güçler, örnekler, köktenciler, özdeşlikler, denklemler, diziler, çeşitlemeler, permütasyonlar, determinantlar ve çözümler)
YOK ET.
(elektron, proton, nötron, meson ve foton)
SİL.
(cayley, henson, lillienthal, chanute, langley, wright, turnbul ve s&erson)
BOZUP ÇIKAR.
(nebulalar, kümeler, akıntılar, ikililer, devler, ana diziler ve ak cüceler)
YAY.
(balıklar, amfibiler, kuşlar, memeliler ve insan)
ORTADAN KALDIR.
YIK.
SİL.
DAĞIT.
BÜTÜN EŞİTLİKLERİ SİL.
SONSUZLUK EŞİTTİR SIFIR.
ARTIK YOK-”
― Alfred Bester, quote from The Demolished Man
“Number 99 was an eviscerated ceramics plant. During the war a succession of blazing explosions had burst among the stock of thousands of chemical glazes, fused them, and splashed them into a wild rainbow reproduction of a lunar crater. Great splotches of magenta, violet, bice green, burnt umber, and chrome yellow were burned into the stone walls. Long streams of orange, crimson, and imperial purple had erupted through windows and doors to streak the streets and surrounding ruins with slashing brush strokes. This became the Rainbow House of Chooka Frood.”
― Alfred Bester, quote from The Demolished Man
“The law makes the silliest damned fuss about death. People die by the thousands everyday; but simply because someone has had the energy and enterprise to assist old D'Courtney to his demise, the law insists on turning him into an enemy of the people. I think it's idiotic, but please don't quote me.”
― Alfred Bester, quote from The Demolished Man
“(What are your ghosts like?)
(They are on the insides of the lids of my eyes.)
(This is also where my ghosts reside.)
(You have ghosts?)
(Of course I have ghosts.)
(But you are a child.)
(I am not a child.)
(But you have not known love.)
(These are my ghosts, the spaces amid love.)”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, quote from Everything Is Illuminated
“His cynicism - a veteran's cynicism - was a thing that disturbed him all the time. It seemed to him after the war that the world was thoroughly altered. It was not even a thing you could explain to anybody, why it was that everything was folly. People appeared enormously foolish to him. He understood that they were only animated cavities full of jelly and strings and liquids. He had seen the insides of jaggedly ripped-open dead people. He knew, for instance, what brains looked like spilling out of somebody's head. In the context of this, much of what went on in normal life seemed wholly and disturbingly ridiculous.”
― David Guterson, quote from Snow Falling on Cedars
“Adventures are never fun while you're having them.”
― C.S. Lewis, quote from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
“There it was before her - life. Life: she thought but she did not finish her thought. She took a look at life, for she had a clear sense of it there, something real, something private, which she shared neither with her children nor with her husband. A sort of transaction went on between them, in which she was on one side, and life was on another, and she was always trying to get the better of it, as it was of her; and sometimes they parleyed (when she sat alone); there were, she remembered, great reconciliation scenes; but for the most part, oddly enough, she must admit that she felt this thing that she called life terrible, hostile, and quick to pounce on you if you gave it a chance.”
― Virginia Woolf, quote from To the Lighthouse
“The conversation was like the sort one has in dreams—mad but interesting.”
― Robert Graves, quote from I, Claudius
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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