“Health and understanding seem to intersect in one’s forties, the one peaking as the other begins its slow ascent. Maybe you’ll know one day what you should’ve taken the time to appreciate.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“How could any of them not see where they were going? They’d been going around and around in tiny circles, had been for years, years that sat heavy in the gut of the living. And this was what made stomachs turn: it was the weight of all that time wasted. It was the seconds and minutes and hours, the true nectar of life, gorged on hungrily and thoughtlessly, forever undigestible, everyone hungry for more.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“Youthful vigor becomes more rot than wisdom. Hopeful optimism is battered by harsh reality. Health and understanding seem to intersect in one’s forties, the one peaking as the other begins its slow ascent. Maybe you’ll know one day what you should’ve taken the time to appreciate. Maybe it’ll be when your knees start popping, when your hands no longer work like they should. It probably won’t be any sooner.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“Time slipped away in a familiar manner, and love dwindled as it was tossed back and forth in the form of arguments. It could only go away, everything she saw and everywhere she looked. Money. It disappeared from her accounts no matter how hard she tried to save. Time and love and wealth and anything worth building or wrapping one’s arms around, trying to hold on to it all, eroding like the cascade of sand between two palms, stolen by the breeze.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“Little fictions. That’s what her father called them. Not lies, just stories to twist the brain into a new shape, to allow the light to spill in with a different color, to throw rainbows instead of shadows.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“Michael had watched his father crawl inside a bottle and die there just so he didn’t have to get up and go to work. It wasn’t long before his mom retreated behind a vacant gaze, leaving him and his sister to pay the bills, to change her stinking bags, to roll her from one sunny patch by the window to another. His mother had become a potted plant they fretted over. No, that wasn’t right. Couldn’t plants at least turn their heads and follow the sun? Weren’t they better than her in that way?”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“Her twitching muscles felt near enough like wracking sobs. Struggling on that table felt near enough like times she’d clutched her knees and sobbed quietly in the tub. Life and love. When the bad parts crept in, sometimes she wished it would end. Wished there was some quick way out for cowards. She loved her husband, wasn’t sure how not to, but sometimes she sat in the tub with the water running dangerously hot and wanted out. Like now, just wanting to die.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“Emotions don’t know how to stitch back the way flesh could. How do you go to a person, your wife of two decades, and tell her you want to start over again? How do you say, “Forget everything we’ve got together. Forget the kids and the fights and all the good times, too. I take it all back.” How do you do that? It ain’t a lizard’s tail, those years. It ain’t something you walk away from and start over.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“his balding head a tiny raft bobbing on a sea of pedestrians.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“sizing up the two young couples they’d murdered in their sleep.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“What was it about this city, with its endless possibilities, that elicited such limited routines?”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“Unaware that anyone other than her suffered at all.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“However it started, there was a chain of blame that linked them all together.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“removed her flesh piece by gory piece. They aren’t here to save me, she realized.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“When sick men refuse to die. When innocent men find something to be guilty of.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“The Swooping Birds that Caught Her Eyes”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“the streets outside full of the silent traffic of darting candy bar wrappers”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“a picked-clean skeleton sitting there in one of ‘em with its seatbelt still on like it might crank the engine”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“The greenery beckoned. It invited her in with the scent of hidden survivors,”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“He had been fourteen when the planes hit.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“origami nests until a brave soul—the sports page or classifieds—tore off and flapped to freedom.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
“Cars lay scattered like some god-child had been playing with them before losing interest,”
― Hugh Howey, quote from I, Zombie
Hugh Howey
Born place: in Charlotte, NC, The United States
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“As there was no rational foundation for Frederick’s complaints, and as he could not give evidence of any real misfortune, Martinon was unable to understand his lamentations about existence. As for him, he went every morning to the school, after that took a walk in the Luxembourg, in the evening swallowed his half-cup of coffee; and with fifteen hundred francs a year, and the love of this work-woman, he felt perfectly happy.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education
“Stars, that hand gets cold,” Kai murmured. Rolling onto his back, he took the prosthetic hand in between both of his palms, warming it as he would warm icy fingers on a winter’s day. Cinder sat up and looked down at him. His eyes were still closed. He could have fallen asleep again, but for his palms rubbing over her metal hand. His shirt was rumpled, his hair tousled against the sheets.
“Kai?”
He grunted in response.
“I love you.”
A sleepy smile curved across his mouth. “I love you too.”
“Good.” Leaning over, she kissed him fast. “Because I’m taking the shower first.”
― Marissa Meyer, quote from Stars Above
“I've never known anyone more ill equipped for happiness. He wouldn't know what to do with it.”
― Lisa Kleypas, quote from Tempt Me at Twilight
“Es gibt eben zweierlei Mitleid. Das eine, das schwachmütige und sentimentale, das eigentlich nur Ungeduld des Herzens ist, sich möglichst schnell freizumachen von der peinlichen Ergriffenheit vor einem fremden Unglück, jenes Mitleid, das gar nicht Mit-leiden ist, sondern nur instinktive Abwehr des fremden Leidens von der eigenen Seele. Und das andere, das einzig zählt - das unsentimentale, aber schöpferische Mitleid, das weiß, was es will, und entschlossen ist, geduldig und mitduldend alles durchzustehen bis zum Letzten seiner Kraft und noch über dies Letzte hinaus.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Beware of Pity
“LOOK, I’M ONLY IN THIS FOR THE PIZZA. The publisher was like, “Oh, you did such a great job writing about the Greek gods last year! We want you to write another book about the Ancient Greek heroes! It’ll be so cool!” And I was like, “Guys, I’m dyslexic. It’s hard enough for me to read books.” Then they promised me a year’s supply of free pepperoni pizza, plus all the blue jelly beans I could eat. I sold out. I guess it’s cool. If you’re looking to fight monsters yourself, these stories might help you avoid some common mistakes—like staring Medusa in the face, or buying a used mattress from any dude named Crusty. But the best reason to read about the old Greek heroes is to make yourself feel better. No matter how much you think your life sucks, these guys and gals had it worse. They totally got the short end of the Celestial stick. By the way, if you don’t know me, my name is Percy Jackson. I’m a modern-day demigod—the son of Poseidon. I’ve had some bad experiences in my time, but the heroes I’m going to tell you about were the original old-school hard-luck cases. They boldly screwed up where no one had screwed up before. Let’s pick twelve of them. That should be plenty. By the time you finish reading about how miserable their lives were—what with the poisonings, the betrayals, the mutilations, the murders, the psychopathic family members, and the flesh-eating barnyard animals—if that doesn’t make you feel better about your own existence, then I don’t know what will. So get your flaming spear. Put on your lion-skin cape. Polish your shield, and make sure you’ve got arrows in your quiver. We’re going back about four thousand years to decapitate monsters, save some kingdoms, shoot a few gods in the butt, raid the Underworld, and steal loot from evil people. Then, for dessert, we’ll die painful tragic deaths. Ready? Sweet. Let’s do this.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
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