Quotes from Dust

Hugh Howey ·  458 pages

Rating: (55.5K votes)


“That's the problem with the truth," Darcy said. "Liars and honest men both claim to have it.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“Elise asked what nostalgic meant, and Jewel said, “It’s where you think the past was better than it really was, only because the present sucks so bad.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“My only wish is that we leave room for hope. There is good and bad in all things. We find what we expect to find. We see what we expect to see. I have learned that if I tilt my head just right and squint, the world outside is beautiful. The future is bright. There are good things to come.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“Sleep was a vehicle for passing the time, for avoiding the present. It was a trolley for the depressed, the impatient, and the dying.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“It doesn’t bother me that I won’t be around one day,” Lukas said after a while. “I don’t stress about the fact that I wasn’t here a hundred years ago. I think death will be a lot like that. A hundred years from now my life will be just like it was a hundred years ago.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust



“There was no going back. Apologies weren't welds; they were just an admission that something had been broken. Often between two people.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“Heroes didn't win. The heroes were whoever happened to win. History told their story -- the dead didn't say a word. All of it was bullshit.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“Maybe the kinds of people who try to shape the world feel like they’re smarter than chaos itself.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“The idea of saving anything was folly, a life especially. No life had been truly saved, not in the history of mankind. They were merely prolonged. Everything comes to an end.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“And every mistake. But every good thing we do as well. They are immortal, every single touch we leave behind. Even if nobody sees them or remembers them, that doesn’t matter. That trail will always be what happened, what we did, every choice. The past lives on forever. There’s no changing it.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust



“Our actions, you know? They last forever. Whatever we do, it’ll always be what we did. There’s no taking them back.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“There is good and bad in all things. We find what we expect to find. We see what we expect to see. I have learned that if I tilt my head just right and squint, the world outside is beautiful.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“...Everything we do is left in...like a trail out there, a big ring of decisions. Every action we take-"
"And mistake."
"And every mistake. But every good thing we do as well. They are immortal, every single touch we leave behind. Even if nobody sees them or remembers them, that doesn't matter. That trail will always be what happened, what we did, every choice. The past lives on forever. There's no changing it.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“Where a story ends is nothing more than a snapshot in time, a brief flash of emotion, a pause. How and if it continues is up to us.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“The idea of saving anything was folly, a life especially. No life had ever been truly saved, not in the history of mankind. They were merely prolonged. Everything comes to an end.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust



“There were those who wanted to live right there, who were reticent to venture any further.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“It was what to replace injustice with that very few gave thought to.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“The world out there was the way it was no matter how much doubt or hope or hate a person breathed into it.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“Gravity is a bitch until she's on your side.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“This was how it worked. You lived. You did your best. You got out of the way. You let those who come after you choose. You let them decide for themselves, live their own lives. This was the way.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust



“There was something about being sent to one’s death and surviving a baptism of fire upon one’s return that pushed most squabblings into the deepest recesses of one’s mind.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“Being cooped up was not new. Living in the middle of a desert wasteland where it wasn’t safe to go out was not new. Being surrounded by men she ought to fear was not new. Stationed in Iraq during the Second Iranian War, Charlotte had grown accustomed to these things, to not leaving base, to not wanting to leave her bunk or a bathroom stall. She was used to this struggle to keep sane. It was mental as much as physical exercise that was required.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“No life had ever been truly saved, not in the history of mankind. They were merely prolonged. Everything comes to an end.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“Dust rained in the halls of Mechanical; it shivered free from the violence of the digging.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“Daytime was a shift, each one endured like a quantum of life, all the short-term planning leading up to another bout of darkness, little thought given to stringing those days into something useful, some chain of valuable pearls. Just another day to survive.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust



“He nodded and dabbed at his forehead with his sleeve. “And every mistake. But every good thing we do as well. They are immortal, every single touch we leave behind. Even if nobody sees them or remembers them, that doesn’t matter. That trail will always be what happened, what we did, every choice. The past lives on forever. There’s no changing it.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“The tweezers weren’t where they were supposed to be. He dug in the bottom of the kit until he found them, cursed the men on other shifts with no respect for their colleagues. It was like living in a dorm, Darcy thought. No, not the right word, the right memory. Like living in a barracks. It was the semblance of order over an underlying mess. Crisp sheets with folded corners over stained mattresses. That’s what this was, people not putting things back where they belonged.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“There were thousands of women asleep. Many thousands. Charlotte thought of the army she could raise. But she wondered if Donny was right – if they would refuse to fight their fathers and husbands and brothers. It took a strange kind of courage to do that.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


“The pressure in the airlock grew, and the folds of her suit found every raised scar across her body, wrinkles pressing where wrinkles had once burned. It was a million pricks from a million gentle needles, every sensitive part of her touched all at once, as if this airlock remembered, as if it knew her. A lover's apology.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Dust


About the author

Hugh Howey
Born place: in Charlotte, NC, The United States
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Popular quotes

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