"She had an exasperating feeling that there was a principle somewhere that she had missed; a principle which once grasped would make the whole thing as clear as daylight. But if there was it continued to elude her."

John Wyndham Literature See all quotes by John Wyndham →

React to this quote

More by John Wyndham

“I don't understand women. Nobody does. Least of all themselves.”

“'The wise lamb does not enrage the lion,' he said. 'It placates him, plays for time, and hopes for the best.'”

“'We've got it all there in the books if we take the trouble to find out about it.'”

“'In spite of what they say, two can't live as cheap as one. And wives hanker after certain standards, and ought to have them - within reason, of course.'”

“It takes civilised people quite a while to appreciate 'the big lie' technique.”

“Darling, you're talking as if all normal-length lives were planned. They aren't, you know. People have to learn how to live them—and by the time they find out, they're nearly gone. No time to remedy mistakes.”

Resonant Thoughts

"The House of Commons represents only one third of the legislative structure, which under our unwritten constitution consists of the 'Queen in Parliament' within which the Crown prerogatives and the re…"

— Tony Benn

Politics1925–2014

#politics

"The idea is to create a picture among the population that we're all one happy family. We're America, we have a national interest, we're working together. There are us nice workers, the firms in which …"

— Noam Chomsky

Philosophy1928

#war

"In one variant, "Allah Almighty has a hundred mercies out of which He sent down one mercy among jinn, men, beasts and insects by which they show affection to one another and by which they show mercy t…"

— Prophet Muhammad ﷺ

Religion570–632

#love

"Mere newspaper articles on the occurrences or questions of the moment, gave no opportunity for the development of any general mode of thought; but I attempted, in the beginning of 1831, to embody in a…"

— John Stuart Mill

Philosophy1806–1873

#time