“When there’s only God to blame, we forgive him. When it’s our fellow man, we destroy him.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“Predict the inevitable”, she said, “and you're bound to be right one day.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“It was the hubris of each generation to think this anew, to think that their time was special, that all things would come to an end with them.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“His discovery was that evil men arose from evil systems, and that any man had the potential to be perverted. Which was why some systems needed to come to an end.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“Here’s what I tell the newly elected: the truth is gonna get out—it always does—but it’s gonna blend in with all the lies.” The Senator twirled a hand in the air. “You have to deny each lie and every truth with the same vinegar. Let those websites and blowhards who bitch about cover-ups confuse the public for you.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“And how much simpler things would be, how much better for us all, if we had people brave enough to do what was right, instead.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“All it took was for a lot of seemingly decent people to put the wrong person in power, and then pay for their innocent choice.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“Liars and dead men – two parties unskilled at dispensing the truth.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“It explains the great quandary of why the most depressed societies are those with the fewest wants.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“Hello, pineapples,’ he whispered. He bent his head toward his lap and punctured the can, listening closely. The pineapples whispered back. They told him they were safe to eat.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“Donald was verging on the sad realization that humanity had been thrown to the brink of extinction by insane men in positions of power following one another, each thinking the others knew where they were going.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“Statistics were magic like this: they could tell you with near-certainty that a thing would occur, without a hint of when or where.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“The stench of his own waste greeted him as he moved between the tall towers. That wasn't how you were supposed to greet someone, he thought.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“And then there was the routine, the mind-numbing routine. It was the castration of thought, the daily grind of an office worker who drooled at the clock, punched out, watched TV until sleep overtook him, slapped an alarm three times, did it again.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“His response was that it was a burden doing what he knew to be correct, to be sound and logical.’ Erskine ran one hand across the pod as if he could touch his daughter within. ‘And how much simpler things would be, how much better for us all, if we had people brave enough to do what was right, instead.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“At almost the same moment in humanity's broad history, mankind had discovered the means for bringing about its utter downfall. And the ability to forget it ever happened.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“You'll be given a commendation in my report."
"Thank you," Troy said. He didn't know what the fuck for.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“Hush my Darling, don’t you cry I’m going to sing you a lullaby Though I’m far away it seems I’ll be with you in your dreams. Hush my Darling, go to sleep All around you angels keep In the morn and through the day They will keep your fears at bay. Sleep my Darling, don’t you cry I’m going to sing you a lullaby”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“The food in Silo One came from cans. Their bodies returned to the same.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“Here was the love and violence in the hearts of men, all for their women”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“Humans have this disease, Donny, this compulsion to move until we bump into something. And then we tunnel through that something, or we sail over the edge of the oceans, or we stagger across mountains—”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“He turned the coin over and over and contemplated the only thing unusual about him holding a trinket from a world fallen to ashes - and that was him being around to marvel at the loss. It was supposed to be people who died and cultures that lasted. Now, it was the other way around;”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“I was beautiful, once, you know.’ Mrs. Crowe withdrew her hands and folded them in her lap. ‘Once that’s gone, once it leaves us for good, no one will ever see it again.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“This was how the shift was supposed to go. Waiting and then doing. Sleeping and then waiting. Make it to dinner and then make it to bed. The end was always in sight. There was nothing to rebel against, just a routine.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“Sheltering the women and the children played some part; Troy was sure of that. The women and children of Silo One had been gifted with a long sleep while the men stayed and took shifts. It removed the passion from the plans, forestalled the chance that the men might fight among themselves.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“The ice on the next pane was already disturbed, had been wiped away by someone recently. Beads of condensation stood like tiny lenses warping the light. He rubbed the glass and knew what had happened. He saw the woman inside with the auburn hair that she sometimes kept in a bun. This was not his wife. This was someone who wanted that, wanted him like that. ‘Hello?’ Troy turned toward the voice.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“Donald remembered running for Congress, thinking he was going to do real good for the future. And then he found himself in an office surrounded by a bewildering tempest of rules, memos and messages, and he quickly learned just to pray for the end of each day. He went from thinking he was going to save the world to passing the time until … until time ran out.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“The ice on the next pane was already disturbed, had been wiped away by someone recently. Beads of condensation stood like tiny lenses warping the light. He rubbed the glass and knew what had happened. He saw the woman inside with the auburn hair that she sometimes kept in a bun. This was not his wife. This was someone who wanted that, wanted him like that.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“The ice on the next pane was already disturbed, had been wiped away by someone recently. Beads of condensation stood like tiny lenses warping the light. He rubbed the glass and knew what had happened. He saw the woman inside with the auburn hair that she sometimes kept in a bun. This was not his wife. This was someone who wanted that, wanted him like that. ‘Hello?”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
“They must believe they were heading somewhere. Or did they not care? Was it a case of following the tracks laid down yesterday? A boot in a hole, a boot in a hole, round and round. Did these men see themselves as deck hands on some great ark with a noble purpose? Or were they walking in circles simply because they knew the way? Donald remembered running for Congress, thinking he was going to do real good for the future. And then he found himself in an office surrounded by a bewildering tempest of rules, memos and messages, and he quickly learned just to pray for the end of each day. He went from thinking he was going to save the world to passing the time until … until time ran out.”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Shift
Hugh Howey
Born place: in Charlotte, NC, The United States
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“I did not want to think so much about her. I wanted to take her as an unexpected, delightful gift, that had come and would go again — nothing more. I meant not to give room to the thought that it could ever be more. I knew too well that all love has the desire for eternity and that therein lies its eternal torment. Nothing lasts. Nothing.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from Three Comrades
“We are all of us doomed to spend our lives watching a movie of our lives - we are always acting on what has just finished happening.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
“A persistent case of the bingos was enough to wash a man out of night carrier landings. That did not mean you were finished as a Navy pilot. It merely meant that you were finished so far as carrier ops were concerned, which meant that you were finished so far as combat was concerned, which meant you were no longer in the competition, no longer ascending the pyramid, no longer qualified for the company of those with the right stuff.”
― Tom Wolfe, quote from The Right Stuff
“Better to join a ghost than to be haunted by them. Better no life than an empty one-”
― Hugh Howey, quote from Wool Omnibus
“And yes, we do have some food. Maybe you'd like to join us? Unless you want to stick with your sheep sushi.”
― Michael Grant, quote from Lies
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