“The IMAX was dark when Shay awoke. She knew Ryan was beside her—even after only a day of being together, she could sense his body as a discrete element in the universe.”
“Mike pulled his T-shirt off, spat onto it, then came at Ryan. “Lemme get that,” he said in a faux mommy voice. Ryan smacked him away. “I’d rather let my face burn.”
“Why were Mike and Drew listening to this guy? A week ago, they’d been trying to, no-joke, kill him. The change was freaky.”
“Normal temp.” It was a woman’s voice. “Asymptomatic.” The baton lifted.”
“No,” Mike said. “You go talk to the Tarrytown guys. They should all be on the first floor catching lunch. See if you can’t convince them to join our cause.” “How convincing should I be?” Drew said, swinging the bat. Mike grabbed the bat. “We want them to help us, not join the guys trying to kill us.” Drew seemed deflated at having to leave his bat in the pile. “I don’t think I want your help,” Shay said. She was like a different person, all in-your-face and shut-the-hell-up. Mike”
“A second person jammed something into Marco’s ear. “What the hell?” he asked. “Normal temp.” It was a woman’s voice. “Asymptomatic.” The baton lifted.”
“No,” Mike said. “You go talk to the Tarrytown guys. They should all be on the first floor catching lunch. See if you can’t convince them to join our cause.” “How convincing should I be?” Drew said, swinging the bat. Mike grabbed the bat. “We want them to help us, not join the guys trying to kill us.” Drew seemed deflated at having to leave his bat in the pile. “I don’t think I want your help,” Shay said. She was like a different person, all in-your-face and shut-the-hell-up. Mike slid the radio back into his cargo shorts. “I don’t think you have a choice.” “I”
“She gave herself over to their ministrations.”
“These people you let escape? They smashed the front windows of the Jessica McClintock store and were caught defacing the mannequins. How do I explain this to the other mall residents? This makes it look like we don’t have control.” “You don’t have control.” Marco wondered why this was such a revelation. “If we don’t provide the illusion of control, we’ll have anarchy. Your job is to help me project this illusion. And if you can no longer manage your job, I am going to have to relieve you of your card key and all privileges of non-compliance that up until now you have enjoyed.”
“Maybe he got busted at the party?” Ginger, always trying to be helpful.”
“When she came out, Preeti was waiting by her cot. “You coming to breakfast?” she said accusatorially, as if Shay had already abandoned her for a second time.”
“Shay looked at him like he’d just peeled off his skin to reveal the alien hide beneath.”
“It was separate from the other theaters, which were being used by the school during the day for child placation and in the evenings for general entertainment of the masses, and he’d confirmed with a guy on security that the IMAX was abandoned.”
“Why didn’t you run?” Lexi asked. “When you first saw the bomb, you could have just grabbed me and Dad and left and none of this would have happened.” Dotty didn’t yell, which was in itself a surprise. “You’re right,” she said. “I could have run, we could have escaped. But what if one of us was infected? What if we brought this flu out into the world? This is the deadliest flu virus anyone’s documented. Millions—and I’m not exaggerating, millions of people in the tri-state area alone would have died. Around the world, who knows? Billions? So I made a sacrifice. I made a very hard choice to choose the whole planet over the individual needs of myself and my family. I hope you can understand that, if not right now, then someday.” Lexi”
“People did not react well, it seemed, to interruptions in their routine.”
“The hero returns!” Drew shouted, arms akimbo, beer sloshing from his cup. The girls in the audience turned to see what fresh meathead had arrived. “I”
“Ryan grabbed Marco’s arm. “I have to see her.” Marco glowered back at him, not sure if Ryan could see in the dim light the amount of pissed-off-ness he felt. Ryan didn’t back down. “It’s your funeral,” Marco said, and continued to walk. Ryan stumbled slightly, trying to keep up—aftereffects of the flu? “So Shay’s your girlfriend?” he asked, panting as if walking was too much for him.”
“Guess you’re not the golden boy anymore, Shrimp.” Marco slipped by like a fart in the wind and joined Mike in his skybox. •”
“She tried to sleep—she was exhausted, it should have just happened—but closing her eyes did not stop her mind.”
“How much of an idiot was she? She’d morphed into one of those girls she’d sworn never to become: hanging on a guy who was a total jerk. But then a voice inside her got all offended, He’s not a total jerk. He helped you investigate the ice-skating rink. He liked you. He kissed you. Like this amounted to anything other than a desperate rationalization for having fallen for the wrong guy. God,”
“Shay’s mind, though, scrabbled around, restless.”
“The mood lightened significantly with this fortuitous event.”
“Maddie brushed her hands over her shirt. “Excellent. I want to use the bathroom.” She replaced her mask. “You just came from the bathroom.” “Oh,” she said. “Right.” She laughed. No, cackled. Lexi was not sure how to respond, so she kept silent.”
“There was no more ice-skating rink. There was merely a gigantic pile of bodies. It was like a garbage dump, just heaps of bodies tossed one on top of the other. The glassy eyes of one man seemed to be staring right at Lexi. She whipped back around the wall and threw up on the cement.”
“Ginger was afraid to breathe for fear of alerting the woman to their presence. Maddie too stood uncharacteristically still and quiet. The”
“There had to be a Plan B. Plan A sucked.”
“Ginger staggered to walk straight. “What can’t you believe? That Lexi’s lost?” Maddie gave her that I’m-sorry-you’re-that-slow look she often flashed. “Lexi disappearing I can believe. She went after Marco, obviously. What I can’t believe is that I was right. From the beginning, I was like, they’re just going to blow the mall up with us inside it, and I was totally right!” She laughed. What she said was not remotely funny. “No.”
“Second, Lexi was not the kind of person who would run blindly through the halls. Lexi thought stuff through. She would know that stumbling around the halls after a lockdown was utter idiocy. She would hide out. So exploring the stockrooms was both a defensive maneuver and part of the overall plan. They”
“Voices echoed down the hall, from where, Shay was not sure, but they scared her. She did not like being alone in this hallway, and definitely did not like the idea of not being alone in the hallway.”
“Victoria hated messes. She hated distractions. Friends were the worst distraction of all.”
“Merry Patricia Wilding was sitting on a cobblestone wall, sketching three rutabagas and daydreaming about the unicorn.”
“The skies we slept under were too uncertain for forecasts. They came and went on the moody gusts of the Atlantic, bringing half a dozen weathers in an afternoon and playing all four movements of a wind symphony, allegro, andante, scherzo and adagio on the broken backs of white waves.”
“Heaven does not know you as the fellow with the nice suit or the woman with the big house or the kid with the new bike. Heaven knows your heart.”
“—Ni siquiera sé por qué vine—dijo ahora con furia después de mirarme intensamente —Simplemente sé que cuando lo supe, tú eras la única persona en la que podía pensar, la primera persona que apareció en mi mente.
—Aquí estoy para ti, nunca olvides eso, yo jamás te voy a dejar.
—¿Por qué? No deberías hacerlo, yo solo te he hecho sufrir, no me merezco que me apoyes, deberías echarme, odiarme, burlarte de mí desgracia.
—Porque yo nuca podría dejarte, ni burlarme de ti, te amo y no importa lo que hagas no voy a dejar de hacerlo.
—Lo lamento, pero yo no puedo.”
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.