The Midwich Cuckoos Quotes
"Because it was my birthday, however, and also to some extent because I had the day before received and signed a contract with an American publisher, we set off on the morning of the 26th for London, and a mild celebration."
"Nobody can't get into Midwich, an’ that’s a fact."
"Midwich was, almost notoriously, a place where things did not happen."
"This must not be taken, however, to mean that Midwich is altogether without history."
"It was a good meeting. I sent the waiter for more drinks. It took about half an hour for the first ebullition to level out, but when it did..."
"It has had its moments. In 1931 it was the centre of an untraced outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease."
"A placid scene. But a few further yards brought him to a point where he could see four sheep lying motionless in a field."
"During the day of the 26th of September there seems to have been no trace of a foreshadow."
"Alan, after some hesitation and demur, allowed himself to be persuaded into Gordon Zellaby’s study to make him acquainted with the situation."
"If one wanted to make a fuss, it was no good making it with him; the man was only doing his duty, and as amiably as possible."
"What I have to tell you is going to be difficult for me to say, difficult for you to believe, too difficult for any of us to understand at present."
"It is natural for women to want babies, and to be happy when they know they are coming. It is not natural, and it is not good to be afraid of them."
"Something very, very strange has happened here."
"Nobody but a child, or a child-minded person, expects life to be fair. It is not, and this is going to be harder on some of us than on others."
"We must make it bind us together for the good of all. There is no blame upon any of us, so there must be no differentiation between us."
"This is our affair – there could not well be any matter more personal to each of us."
"It’s going to be all right. We’ll look after you."
"It’s so – so abasing, Gordon. It makes me feel like an animal."
"If you were wishful to challenge the supremacy of a society that was fairly stable, and quite well weaponed, what would you do?"
"If he is sharing consciousness with the rest of the group, instead of having to communicate with others with difficulty, as we do, can he be said to have a mind of his own, a separate personality as we understand it?"
"What we actually have are two entities only – a boy, and a girl: though the boy has thirty component parts each with the physical structure and appearance of individual boys; and the girl has twenty-eight component parts."
"I am stating a fact – having shown you the evidence first."
"Many forms cannot survive at all unless they create colonies which operate as individuals."
"Evolution of a spirit assumes the eventual development of a greater spirit."
"Might it not, then, for lack of a suitable single vehicle, inform a group – rather like an encyclopedia grown too large for one volume?"
"One ought to have names for these two super-spirits. I keep on thinking of – Adam – and Eve."
"If I have followed you, you are saying that in each of these two groups the minds are in some way – well – pooled."
"One has no idea how these compulsions are exerted, but I fancy that if it can be explored we might find that when a certain degree of will is, so as to speak, concentrated in one vessel a Hegelian change takes place."
"It would be foolish to be quite so didactic as that. It may be possible, but it will not be easy."
"Knowledge is simply a kind of fuel; it needs the motor of understanding to convert it into power."
"We have lived so long in a garden that we have all but forgotten the commonplaces of survival."
"If you want to keep alive in the jungle, you must live as the jungle does."
"The wise lamb does not enrage the lion."
"Fear, too, is a very old sport, perhaps as old as life itself."
"Humour and compassion are the most important of human inventions."
"We are all, you see, toys of the life-force."
"Our position can be made stronger only if we take the initiative."
"They make no difference. Nor is it something that can be arranged by discussion. It is a biological obligation."
"If we exist, we shall dominate you – that is clear and inevitable."