Blish Quotes

#1. James Blish told me I had the worst case of "said bookism" (that is, using every word except said to indicate dialogue). He told me to limit the verbs to said, replied, asked, and answered and only when absolutely necessary.

Anne McCaffrey

#2. I for one refuse to believe that an enterprise so well conceived, so scrupulously produced, and so widely loved can stay boneyarded for long.
And I have 1,898 letters from people who don't believe it either.

James Blish

#3. Credit ... is the only enduring testimonial to man's confidence in man.

James Blish

#4. Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep! He, like the world, his ready visit pays Where fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes.

Edward Young

#5. The interruptions of the telephone seem to us to waste half the life of the ordinary American engaged in public or private business; he has seldom half an hour consecutively at his own disposal - a telephone is a veritable time scatterer.

Beatrice Webb

#6. And what are these fluxions? The velocities of evanescent increments. And what are these same evanescent increments? They are neither finite quantities, nor quantities infinitely small, nor yet nothing. May we not call them the ghosts of departed quantities ... ?

George Berkeley

#7. Stand still, thou hurrying orb in the high heavens, and make this hour immortal!

Oscar Wilde

#8. Its not over, until the Lord says its over.

T.D. Jakes

#9. Girls talk to each other like men talk to each other. But girls have an eye for detail.

Amy Winehouse

#10. BY DEVOTING THE TIME AND EFFORT IT TAKES TO DEVELOP WHAT GOD HAS PLACED YOU, YOU WILL EXPERIENCE THE JOY OF FULFILLMENT.

Joyce Meyer

#11. [T]he end cannot justify the means; but if there are no other means, and the end is necessary...

James Blish

#12. But now the shots began - not many, but one shot is a fusillade if there have been no shots before.

James Blish

#13. Who does it hurt? That's who the story is about.

James Blish

#14. Indeed, in view of its function, religion stands in greater need of a rational foundation of its ultimate principles than even the dogmas of science.

Muhammad Iqbal

#15. I would not sacrifice a single living mesquite tree for any book ever written. One square mile of living desert is worth a hundred 'great books' - and one brave deed is worth a thousand.

Edward Abbey

#16. Before taking her into the library, my wife told me she was an old friend in a marriage crisis. A fatuous lie; at her age there are no crises left in marriage, only acceptance and extraction. (General Villiers)

Robert Ludlum

#17. Now that I'm a free agent I mean to make my own choices, and explain them to nobody if that's what pleases me.

James Blish

#18. In retrospect, each of the steps toward this abyss seemed irrevocable, and yet they had all been so small!

James Blish

#19. You definitely have to do other things when you know your shot isn't falling. You can't just depend on knocking down the three-ball.

Chris Copeland

#20. The omelette tasted like flannel.

James Blish

#21. The world is a beautiful book, but of little use to him who cannot read it.

Carlo Goldoni

#22. She was right. Peace was the way.
She was right. But at the wrong time.

James Blish