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Jack Finney Quotes

Would you have references?I'm awfully sorry but I haven't. I just arrived in New York, and don't know a soul. Except you. I smiled but she didn't smile back. She stood hesitating, and I said, It's tru...

Jack Finney

Would you have references?I'm awfully sorry but I haven't. I just arrived in New York, and don't know a soul. Except you. I smiled but she didn't smile back. She stood hesitating, and I said, It's tru...

Tags: humor, references, tenants

The human mind searches for cause and effect, always; and we all prefer the weird and thrilling to the dull and commonplace as an answer.

Jack Finney

The human mind searches for cause and effect, always; and we all prefer the weird and thrilling to the dull and commonplace as an answer.

About Author
Walter Braden "Jack" Finney (born John Finney; October 2, 1911 – November 14, 1995) was an American writer. His best-known works are science fiction and thrillers, including The Body Snatchers and Time and Again. The former was the basis for the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers and its remakes.

The human mind is a strange and wonderful thing, he said reflectively, but I’m not sure it will ever figure itself out. Everything else, maybe—from sub-atomic particles to the universe—except itself.

Jack Finney

The human mind is a strange and wonderful thing, he said reflectively, but I’m not sure it will ever figure itself out. Everything else, maybe—from sub-atomic particles to the universe—except itself.

It occurred to me that professors must get so they unconsciously act the way people think professors ought to act;

Jack Finney

It occurred to me that professors must get so they unconsciously act the way people think professors ought to act;

Set flush in the wall behind the desk was a steel door. It was knobless, and along one edge were three brass keyholes spaced a few inches apart. Rube brought out a key ring, selected a key, then walke...

Jack Finney

Set flush in the wall behind the desk was a steel door. It was knobless, and along one edge were three brass keyholes spaced a few inches apart. Rube brought out a key ring, selected a key, then walke...

Haven't you noticed, too, on the part of nearly everyone you know, a growing rebellion against the present? And an increasing longing for the past? I have. Never before in all my long life have I hear...

Jack Finney

Haven't you noticed, too, on the part of nearly everyone you know, a growing rebellion against the present? And an increasing longing for the past? I have. Never before in all my long life have I hear...

Tags: escapism, escapist, modernity, nostalgia, past, present

And that, my friend, is how the world ends. On the edge of a precipice, with one foot over the edge, it stops, turns and goes back, leaving an empty earth of birds and insects, wind, rain and rusting...

Jack Finney

And that, my friend, is how the world ends. On the edge of a precipice, with one foot over the edge, it stops, turns and goes back, leaving an empty earth of birds and insects, wind, rain and rusting...

I won’t let you stay here. Julia, we’re a people who pollute the very air we breathe. And our rivers. We’re destroying the Great Lakes; Erie is already gone, and now we’ve begun on the oceans. We fill...

Jack Finney

I won’t let you stay here. Julia, we’re a people who pollute the very air we breathe. And our rivers. We’re destroying the Great Lakes; Erie is already gone, and now we’ve begun on the oceans. We fill...

I wrapped his pistol in his cap, and with the butt of the gun—not the end of the butt, but the side—hit him hard on the head. You read a lot about people being hit on the head and knocked out, but you...

Jack Finney

I wrapped his pistol in his cap, and with the butt of the gun—not the end of the butt, but the side—hit him hard on the head. You read a lot about people being hit on the head and knocked out, but you...

I saw my father’s wooden filing cabinet, his framed diplomas stacked on top of it, just as they’d been brought from his office. In that cabinet lay records of the colds, cut fingers, cancers, broken b...

Jack Finney

I saw my father’s wooden filing cabinet, his framed diplomas stacked on top of it, just as they’d been brought from his office. In that cabinet lay records of the colds, cut fingers, cancers, broken b...

The very moment you are caught, there is always a chance.

Jack Finney

The very moment you are caught, there is always a chance.

She wasn't actually a girl you'd turn around and look at again, and remember, I suppose; she wasn't actually pretty, I guess you'd have to say. But after I'd talked to her a few times, and had a Coke...

Jack Finney

She wasn't actually a girl you'd turn around and look at again, and remember, I suppose; she wasn't actually pretty, I guess you'd have to say. But after I'd talked to her a few times, and had a Coke...

​He turned to pull the door closed and the warm air from the hall rushed through the narrow opening again. As he saw the yellow paper, the pencil flying, scooped off the desk and, unimpeded by the gla...

Jack Finney

​He turned to pull the door closed and the warm air from the hall rushed through the narrow opening again. As he saw the yellow paper, the pencil flying, scooped off the desk and, unimpeded by the gla...

Tags: inspirational

It may be that the strongest instinct of the human race, stronger than sex or hunger, is curiosity: the absolute need to know. It can and often does motivate a lifetime, it kills more than cats, and t...

Jack Finney

It may be that the strongest instinct of the human race, stronger than sex or hunger, is curiosity: the absolute need to know. It can and often does motivate a lifetime, it kills more than cats, and t...

Tags: instinct

And—we’re all actors by instinct, hams from birth—she

Jack Finney

And—we’re all actors by instinct, hams from birth—she

Relationship building at a distance, through the filter of a computer, is ultimately ineffective for the sincere friend seeker, but it is ideally suited to the sociopath whose powers of manipulation a...

Jack Finney

Relationship building at a distance, through the filter of a computer, is ultimately ineffective for the sincere friend seeker, but it is ideally suited to the sociopath whose powers of manipulation a...

Have you ever given someone a book you enjoyed enormously, with a feeling of envy because they were about to read it for the first time, an experience you could never have again?

Jack Finney

Have you ever given someone a book you enjoyed enormously, with a feeling of envy because they were about to read it for the first time, an experience you could never have again?

She talked all the way back to the office, looking up at me eagerly through her slanted glasses, shoving the hair back off her face. The upper edge of her glasses bisected her right eye, the lower edg...

Jack Finney

She talked all the way back to the office, looking up at me eagerly through her slanted glasses, shoving the hair back off her face. The upper edge of her glasses bisected her right eye, the lower edg...

The sunlight lying on an acre of farm land weighs several tons, believe it or not.

Jack Finney

The sunlight lying on an acre of farm land weighs several tons, believe it or not.

As Einstein himself pointed out. He said we’re like people in a boat without oars drifting along a winding river. Around us we see only the present. We can’t see the past, back in the bends and curves...

Jack Finney

As Einstein himself pointed out. He said we’re like people in a boat without oars drifting along a winding river. Around us we see only the present. We can’t see the past, back in the bends and curves...