vi The secret of success in battle lies often not so much in the use of one's own strength but in the exploitation of the other side's weaknesses.

p.29,31 About a week after Ilse went to Switzerland, I finally caught a Trippy Show... It was a mixture of cartoon, live action, stills, and abstract... It ended with the girl freed, the knight revived, and the pair of them mounted on his horse and riding off into the dawn. The dragon dissolved first into bones, then dust. And the tripod presided over the scene, with the rising sun throwing a halo round its capsule. There was the Trippy tune and massed voices roaring "Hail the Tripod! Hail the Tripod! Hail the Tripod!" On and on.

p.35 "Did I catch a reference to the Trippy Show? Oddly enough, I watched it myself the other day, and liked it more than I had anticipated. It has a curious, and curiously strong, appeal."

p.37 A couple of days later, the Daily Mail came out against Trippies... There was a banner headline:

TRIPPY BRAINWASH?

p.41 Dr. Monmouth... said, "Tell me. What is it you have to do?"
She said slowly, "Obey the Tripod." ..."The Tripod is good. The Tripod knows best." ..."About everything." ..."I do what the Tripod tells me."
"And who told you this?"
"The Tripod."

p.42 "I'm still not sure I know what that was about."
He handed a glass to Dr. Monmouth. "She'd been previously hypnotized by someone else? But who?"
"You heard her: the Tripod."
Martha said, "That's ridiculous. The Tripods were destroyed. By the television show, do you mean? Is that possible?"

p.44 "Scientific knowledge doesn't have to follow the pattern we're familiar with..."

p.51 "...Have a drink, and try to relax. All right, have another drink. There are times when getting drunk's not a bad idea."

p.54 I didn't like the thoughts that came into my head, so I shut them out.

p.58-59 "It's easy to enter the way of peace," Uncle Ian said.
His briefcase was on the carpet beside him. He clicked it open, and produced something: a floppy helmetlike thing, black, but threaded with silver.
"The lucky ones," Uncle Ian said, "are those who opened their hearts voluntarily to the Tripods' message. But the Tripods want everyone to know the joy of belonging to the new brotherhood of man. So they've given us these Caps, which will banish all doubts and uncertainties."
He held it out to me, and with his other hand pulled off his hat. He was wearing a helmet underneath.
He said earnestly, "Put it on Laurie..."
"Sounds great," I said. "only - can it wait a couple of minutes? I lit the gas to make coffee just before you arrived. I'd better switch off before it sets fire to the kitchen."
...In a calm voice, Uncle Ian said, "The human mind is full of trickery and deceit, until it has been brought into the harmony of the Tripods. Hold him, Nathanael."

p.64 The peace and harmony Uncle Ian and the others claimed to be handing out in fact was death, because without being yourself, an individual, you weren't really alive.

p.77 "There are times when thinking about something is the worst possible policy."

p.78 it made no difference to a pony who or what ruled the world, as long as the fodder kept coming.

p.136 Who could tell what wonders might still have lain ahead? But now, thanks to the Tripods, it had all ended.

p.144-145 "...We must act, that is, as though we're the last hope of the human race." ..."What this means," Pa went on, "is that everything we do is critical. Our first aim has to be self-preservation, but self-preservation isn't enough... So our second aim must be to fight the Tripods... as a means of keeping hope alive."