The collection / 8 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

You have to remember that I was a bright but simple fellow from Canada who seldom, if ever, met another writer, and then only a so-called literary type that occasionally sold a story and meanwhile worked in an office for a living.

A.E. van Vogt / quote

02Undated

His mind, grooved through the uncounted ages to ultimate despair, soared up insanely. His legs and arms glistened like tongues of living fire as they writhed and twisted in the light that blazed from the portholes. His mouth, a gash in his caricature of a human head, slavered a white frost that floated away in little frozen globules.

A.E. van Vogt / quote

03Undated

Resistance, however, is useless. (1939)

A.E. van Vogt / quote

04Undated

Science fiction is a field of writing where, month after month, every printed word implies to hundreds of thousands of people: 'There is change. Look, today's fantastic story is tomorrow's fact.

A.E. van Vogt / quote

05Undated

If I believe the same things today I did yesterday I've learned nothing.

A.E. van Vogt / quote

06Undated

Contentedly sat the old woman. Soon now, the sea would hold no terrors, and the blinds wouldn't have to be down, nor the windows shut; she would even be able to walk along the shore at midnight as of old; and they, whom she had deserted so long ago, would once more shrink from the irresistable energy aura of her new, young body.The sound of the sea came to her, where she sat so quietly; calm sound at first, almost gentle in the soft sibilation of each wave thrust. Farther out, the voices of the water were louder, more raucous, blatantly confident, but the meaning of what they said was blurred by the distance, a dim, clamorous confusion that rustled discordantly out of the gathering night.Night!She shouldn't be aware of night falling, when the blinds were drawn.("The Witch")

A.E. van Vogt / quote

07Undated

The mist enveloped her form. She was lifted into it, then instantly dropped. Swiftly, the mist retreated to the window.It was gone. The old woman lay flat on her back, eyes open and staring; her mouth open, too, unprettily.That was the over-all effect - the utter lack of anything beautiful.("The Witch")

A.E. van Vogt / quote

08Undated

Chum was a British boy's weekly which, at the end of the year was bound into a single huge book; and the following Christmas parents bought it as Christmas presents for male children.

A.E. van Vogt / quote