John Brunner > Quotes

“It's supposed to be automatic, but actually you have to push this button. ”
― John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar

“There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, " This is new, and therefore better.”
― John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider

“to travel faster than a speeding bullet is not much help if you and it are heading straight towards each other”
― John Brunner, The Infinitive of Go

“I'm myself, not a label.”
― John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider

“What people want, mainly, is to be told by some plausible authority that what they are already doing is right. I don't know know of a quicker way to become unpopular than to disagree.”
― John Brunner, The Jagged Orbit

“Don't bother explaining--I've heard all the excuses and the trouble is most of them are true.”
― John Brunner, Children of the Thunder

“Putain mais quelle fichue imagination je peux avoir ...”
― John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar

“It's common platitude that knowledge is neutral but every now and then it would be useful if it was on your side and not theirs.”
― John Brunner, The Jagged Orbit

“Take stock, citizen bacillus,
Now that there are so many billions of you,
Bleeding through your opened veins,
Into your bathtub, or into the Pacific
Of that by which they may remember you.”
― John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar

“True, you’re not a slave. You’re worse off than that by a long, long way. You’re a predatory beast shut up in a cage of which the bars aren’t fixed, solid objects you can gnaw at or in despair batter against with your head until you get punch-drunk and stop worrying. No, those bars are the competing members of your own species, at least as cunning as you on average, forever shifting around so you can’t pin them down, liable to get in your way without the least warning, disorienting your personal environment until you want to grab a gun or an axe and turn mucker.”
― John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar

“Shit, I forgot. This time of the afternoon the bar's probably shut. Half the staff has gone sick again. Mono, I think. Well, let's go look anyway; we might be lucky. We can't go up to my room--it's full of bugs.'
Which kind?'
Both.”
― John Brunner, The Sheep Look Up