Bernard Beckett Quotes

I try not to be surprised. Surprise is the public face of a mind that has been closed.

The only thing binding individuals together is ideas. Ideas mutate and spread; they change their hosts as much as their hosts change them.

Thought, like any parasite, cannot exist without a compliant host.

A society that fears knowledge is a society that fears itself.

Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism.

Many scholars have complained of our tendency to see history only in conflicts, but I am not convinced they are right. It is in conflict that our values are exposed.

... from our vantage point it is now clear that the only thing the population had to fear was fear itself.

In the end, living is defined by dying.

Sometimes, even the very best course of action fails.

Unable to attribute misfortune to chance, unable to accept their ultimate insignificance within the greater scheme, the people looked for monsters in their midst.

Which came first, the mind or the idea of the mind? Have you never wondered? They arrived together. The mind is an idea.

I cannot choose to ignore this feeling, of life slowly bleeding out of me. I cannot ignore the fact that life only makes sense to me when I see a smile, or feel another hand in mine.

Consciousness is the feel of accessing memory.

Superstition is the need to view the world in terms of simple cause and effect.

The mind is not a machine, it is an idea. And the Idea resists all attempts to control it.

Are you saying a society wracked by plague is preferable to one wracked by indifference?

Science is a little bit more than a wonderful way of modelling and predicting; its a wonderful technical abstraction. I think science is a really wonderful technical abstraction.

I write with teenagers in mind.

There is a fascination with fear. It grabs our attention.

Science is a little bit more than a wonderful way of modelling and predicting it's a wonderful technical abstraction. I think science is a really wonderful technical abstraction.

What about an amnesiac, who awakes having lost his memories and must learn of his past from scratch? Has he died? How can we be just memories? How does that leave us with enough?

But time passes. Fear becomes a memory. Terror becomes routine it loses its grip.