The Day of the Triffids

by John Wyndham

man had succeeded in putting most forms of nature save his own under a reasonable degree of restraint,

“Anybody who has had a great treasure has always led a precarious existence,”

one of the most shocking things about it is to realize how easily we have lost a world that seemed so safe and certain.”

“Self-pity and a sense of high tragedy are going to build nothing at all. So we had better throw them out at once, for it is builders that we must become.

There’s a whole lot of people don’t seem to understand that you have to talk to a man in his own language before he’ll take you seriously.

Everyone starts by knowing nothing about anything, but God gives him—and even her—brains to find out with. Failure to use them is not a virtue to be praised; even in women it is a gap to be deplored.”

Decent intentions seem to be the most dangerous things around just now.

The most valuable part of our flying start is knowledge. That’s the short cut to save us starting where our ancestors did. We’ve got it all there in the books if we take the trouble to find out about it.”

while there’s life, there’s hope.”