Quotes from The 5th Wave

Rick Yancey ·  457 pages

Rating: (318.5K votes)


“But if I'm it, the last of my kind, the last page of human history, like hell I'm going to let the story end this way. I may be the last one, but I am the one still standing. I am the one turning to face the faceless hunter in the woods on an abandoned highway. I am the one not running but facing. Because if I am the last one, then I am humanity. And if this is humanity's last war, then I am the battlefield.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“Some things you can never leave behind. They don't belong to the past. They belong to you.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“We’re here, and then we’re gone, and it’s not about the time we’re here, but what we do with the time.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“How do you rid the Earth of humans? Rid the humans of their humanity.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“Cruelty isn't a personality trait. Cruelty is a habit.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave



“I had it all wrong," he says. "Before I found you, I thought the only way to hold on was to find something to live for. It isn't. To hold on, you have to find something you're willing to die for.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“Sarcasm doesn't appear to work on him. If that's true, I'm in trouble: It's my normal mode of communication.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“You know how sometimes you tell yourself that you have a choice, but really you don't have a choice? Just because there are alternatives doesn't mean they apply to you.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“That's what you do when the curtain is falling--you give the line that the audience wants to hear.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“You can only call someone crazy if there’s someone else who’s normal. Like good and evil. If everything was good, then nothing would be good.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave



“What doesn't kill us sharpens us. Hardens us. Schools us. You're beating plowshares into swords, Vosch. You are remaking us. We are the clay, and you are Michelangelo. And we will be your masterpiece.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“I am a shark, Cassie," he says slowly, drawing the words out, as if he might be speaking to me for the last time. Looking into my eyes with tears in his, as if he's seeing me for the last time. "A shark who dreamed he was a man.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“When the moment comes to stop running from your past, to turn around and face the thing you thought you could not face--the moment when your life teeters between giving up and getting up--when that moment comes, and it always comes, if you can't get up and you can't give up either, here's what you do: Crawl.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“His heart, the war.

Her face, the battlefield.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“There's an old saying about the truth setting you free. Don't buy it. Sometimes the truth slams the cell door shut and throws a thousand bolts.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave



“Because we will die, but at least we will die unbroken.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“I thought I knew what loneliness was before he found me, but I had no clue. You don't know what real loneliness is until you've known the opposite.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“What were they thinking? 'It's an alien apocalypse! Quick, grab the beer!”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“I didn't save you," he whispers, lips tickling my eyelashes. "You saved me.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“I don't care what the stars say about how small we are. One, even the smallest, weakest, most insignificant one, matters.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave



“I don't move. I wait behind my log, terrified. Over the past ten minutes, it's become such a dear friend, I consider naming it: Howard, my pet log.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“God doesn't call the equipped, son. God equips the called. And you have been called.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“I took one look at it and demanded that he name three things he isn't good at.
"Roller skating, singing, and talking to girls."
"You left out stalking," I told him as he helped me out of the bed. "I can always tell when you're lurking around corners."
"You only asked for three.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“When I cry - when I let myself cry - that's who I cry for. I don't cry for myself. I cry for the Cassie that's gone.
And I wonder what that Cassie would think of me.
The Cassie who kills.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“I would kill for a cheeseburger. Honestly. If I stumbled across someone eating a cheeseburger, I would kill them for it.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave



“After another half second, he's locked me in a bear hug, crushing me into his chest and lifting my feet a couple inches off the ground as I kick furiously with my heels, twisting my head back and forth, snapping at his forearm with my teeth.
And the whole time his lips tickling the delicate skin of my ear. "Cassie. Don't. Cassie..."
"Let...me...go."
"That's been the whole problem. I can't.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“Is this how humanity waves good-bye?
Hell no.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


“In case you're an alien and you're reading this: BITE ME.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The 5th Wave


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About the author

Rick Yancey
Born place: The United States
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Popular quotes

“Cleopatra moreover came of age in a country that entertained a singular definition of women’s roles. Well before her and centuries before the arrival of the Ptolemies, Egyptian women enjoyed the right to make their own marriages. Over time their liberties had increased, to levels unprecedented in the ancient world. They inherited equally and held property independently. Married women did not submit to their husbands’ control. They enjoyed the right to divorce and to be supported after a divorce. Until the time an ex-wife’s dowry was returned, she was entitled to be lodged in the house of her choice. Her property remained hers; it was not to be squandered by a wastrel husband. The law sided with the wife and children if a husband acted against their interests. Romans marveled that in Egypt female children were not left to die; a Roman was obligated to raise only his first-born daughter. Egyptian women married later than did their neighbors as well, only about half of them by Cleopatra’s age. They loaned money and operated barges. They served as priests in the native temples. They initiated lawsuits and hired flute players. As wives, widows, or divorcées, they owned vineyards, wineries, papyrus marshes, ships, perfume businesses, milling equipment, slaves, homes, camels. As much as one third of Ptolemaic Egypt may have been in female hands.”
― Stacy Schiff, quote from Cleopatra: A Life


“في البدء ، حدث انفجار ، لكنه ليس انفجارا كالذي يمكن ان نشاهده على الأرض ، (فهذا الانفجار الأخير ينطلق من مركز معين ويمتد حتى يشمل حجما متزايدا من الهواء المحيط به) وإنما هو انفجار حدث في كل مكان وفي آن واحد”
― Steven Weinberg, quote from The First Three Minutes: A Modern View Of The Origin Of The Universe


“Vanity's contribution to Fiction in general was an abundance of cheap labour and the occasional blockbuster, which was accepted into Fiction with an apologetic 'gosh, don't know how that happened'.”
― Jasper Fforde, quote from One of Our Thursdays Is Missing


“Remember you are everything, or you are nothing. If you are everything, then your heart is so big it can hold all of humanity within itself, you have no jealousy or narrowness. You are in the heart of every creature and every creature is in your heart. There is only bliss.

Intro to Part 2, Chapter 4. Credit given to Swami Purna.”
― Deborah Moggach, quote from The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel


“I know how much you grieve over those who are under your care: those you try to help and fail, those you cannot help. Have faith in God and remember that He will is His own way and in His own time complete what we so poorly attempt. Often we do not achieve for others the good that we intend but achieve something, something that goes on from our effort. Good is an overflow. Where we generously and sincerely intend it, we are engaged in a work of creation which may be mysterious even to ourselves - and because it is mysterious we may be afraid of it. But this should not make us draw back. God can always show us, if we will, a higher and a better way; and we can only learn to love by loving. Remember that all our failures are ultimately failures in love. Imperfect love must not be condemned and rejected but made perfect. The way is always forward, never back.”
― Iris Murdoch, quote from The Bell


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