Phil Quotes in An Experiment with an Air Pump
Ellen: Anecdotal doesn’t count. They could be making it up. Or elaborating something much more explicable.
Phil: Why would they want to do that?
Ellen: Because people like telling stories. They like sitting around and telling tales for which there’s no rational explanation. Like ghost stories. And crop circles. And being a reincarnation of Marie Antoinette. I’m not entirely sure why. You’d need to ask a psychologist.
Ellen: The fact that you’ve never had a moral qualm in your life doesn’t mean you have superior reasoning power, it just means you have a limited imagination.
Kate: We’ll be able to pinpoint genes for particular types of cancer, for neurological disorders, for all sorts of things, some of them benign, some of them not, but what it really means is we’ll understand the shape and complexity of a human being, we’ll be able to say this is a man, this is exactly who he is, this is his potential, these are his possible limitations. And manic depression is genetic. We’ll pin it down soon.
Phil: And then what? No more Uncle Stans.
Isobel: I’m unused to answering questions. When I talk about myself my face feels hot. When I talk about myself I feel that I am lying.
Armstrong: Are you?
Isobel: I’m not sure. I try not to. But we all lie about ourselves.
Armstrong: Do we?
Isobel: We don’t mean to but we do.
Phil Quotes in An Experiment with an Air Pump
Ellen: Anecdotal doesn’t count. They could be making it up. Or elaborating something much more explicable.
Phil: Why would they want to do that?
Ellen: Because people like telling stories. They like sitting around and telling tales for which there’s no rational explanation. Like ghost stories. And crop circles. And being a reincarnation of Marie Antoinette. I’m not entirely sure why. You’d need to ask a psychologist.
Ellen: The fact that you’ve never had a moral qualm in your life doesn’t mean you have superior reasoning power, it just means you have a limited imagination.
Kate: We’ll be able to pinpoint genes for particular types of cancer, for neurological disorders, for all sorts of things, some of them benign, some of them not, but what it really means is we’ll understand the shape and complexity of a human being, we’ll be able to say this is a man, this is exactly who he is, this is his potential, these are his possible limitations. And manic depression is genetic. We’ll pin it down soon.
Phil: And then what? No more Uncle Stans.
Isobel: I’m unused to answering questions. When I talk about myself my face feels hot. When I talk about myself I feel that I am lying.
Armstrong: Are you?
Isobel: I’m not sure. I try not to. But we all lie about ourselves.
Armstrong: Do we?
Isobel: We don’t mean to but we do.
