The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971)

Lawrence Pressman: Dr. Hellstrom

Quotes 

• Dr. Hellstrom : Compared with Man, we have to admit that the insect does not display what we can describe as intelligence. But don't feel too proud about that, because where there is no intelligence, there is also no stupidity.

• Dr. Hellstrom : In fighting the insect we have killed ourselves, polluted our water, poisoned our wildlife, permeated our own flesh with deadly toxins. The insect becomes immune, and we are poisoned. In fighting with superior intellect, we have outsmarted ourselves.

• Dr. Hellstrom : Psychiatrists tell me that from childhood nightmares to adult schizophrenia, the insect is a common fixation on the human mind - partly because his face seems so evil, partly because he is so indestructible.

• Dr. Hellstrom : Ever wonder how David slew Goliath? Like the insect, he wasn't afraid to die.

• Dr. Hellstrom : Man will point to nature, claiming War was meant to be. But here they died with reason - through selflessness, not greed.

• Dr. Hellstrom : Without the burden of intellect, emotion or individual identity, these creatures were given something we weren't: the knowledge that they must work together to create the elusive utopia - the perfect society.

• Dr. Hellstrom : Confronted with this incredible resourcefulness - this desperate desire to survive - we must wonder, why? What is the value, even for oneself, to sustain an existence that must ultimately end in death? The insect has the answer, because he never posed the question.

• Dr. Hellstrom : Of the billions of living things on Earth, only Man ponders his existence. His questions lead to torment, for he is unable to accept, as the insects do, that life's only purpose is life itself.

• Dr. Hellstrom : [Opening lines]  The Earth was created not with the gentle caress of love, but with the brutal violence of rape.

• Dr. Hellstrom : For the male Black Widow, the most exciting part of sex... is to escape.

• Dr. Hellstrom : [Closing lines]  In a logic that perhaps no man will ever understand, the true winner is the last to finish the race.

• Dr. Hellstrom : Now I wouldn't dare a brainless insect to Man's brilliant computer, would I? Think about it. A computer is a mechanism programmed with a thousand tiny bits of information; it operates by juggling that information into a form of logic. I humbly submit it's not without analogy in the insect world.

• Dr. Hellstrom : We earlier demonstrated that the insect has only a semblance of heart; let it now be known he has no soul. Free from the concept of romance, the act of procreation occurs as simply, naturally and obliviously as eating. Neither does beauty play a part, for the only requisite between consenting adults is that they be of the same species.