Rodman Philbrick · 223 pages
Rating: (7.9K votes)
“The only real treasure is in your head. Memories are better than diamonds and nobody can steal them from you”
― Rodman Philbrick, quote from The Last Book in the Universe
“Bean finds the best apple in our tree and hands it up to me. "You know what this tastes like when you first bite into it?" she asks.
"No, what?"
"Blue sky."
"You're zoomed."
"You ever eat blue sky?"
"No," I admit.
"Try it sometime," she says. "It's apple-flavored.”
― Rodman Philbrick, quote from The Last Book in the Universe
“Do not despair, my friend. Today is theirs, but the future is ours”
― Rodman Philbrick, quote from The Last Book in the Universe
“I believe that we have the ability to change our lives using our imaginations. Imagination is a muscle—the more you use it, the stronger it gets.”
― Rodman Philbrick, quote from The Last Book in the Universe
“The future is like the moon. You never expect to go there, or think about what it might be like.”
― Rodman Philbrick, quote from The Last Book in the Universe
“I don't have any of the answers, son. Never did. All I can do is keep asking the questions. Keep trying to make sense of why people do what they do.”
― Rodman Philbrick, quote from The Last Book in the Universe
“I used to belong to a family unit, with a foster mom and dad and my little sister, Bean, but that's over and I don't want to talk about what happened , or how unfair it was. Not yet. The less said about that the better, because if there's one thing I learned from Ryter it's that you can't always be looking backward or something will hit you from the front.”
― Rodman Philbrick, quote from The Last Book in the Universe
“I'm thinking maybe letting the latches burn is the right idea. Let everything burn until there's nothing left but ashes and cool rain.”
― Rodman Philbrick, quote from The Last Book in the Universe
“I know who the real hero is, and it isn't me or brave Lanaya. It's an old man with a white beard and a walking stick and a heart so big it won't let him stop thinking he can change the world by writing down things in a book no one will ever read.”
― Rodman Philbrick, quote from The Last Book in the Universe
“Shut up!" I say, holding my hands to my ears. "Shut up!"
But the stupid gummy won't shut up; he's trying to tell me something important even though I'm covering my ears and I don't want to hear it and I don't want to think about who I am or what's wrong with me or why I'm out here at the edge of the Urb, at the edge of the known world, listening to some old mope who's so crazy, he think about the future when everyone knows that the future doesn't exist.”
― Rodman Philbrick, quote from The Last Book in the Universe
“He's a feral child. No mother, no father, no one to care for him or raise him or teach him how to be human. So he's existed much like an animal, without language. He thinks in images, not word."
"How strange," Lanaya, sounding amazed.
Ryter shakes his head sadly. "Not strange, I'm afaraid. His condition is all too common in the latches. And becoming more common every day.”
― Rodman Philbrick, quote from The Last Book in the Universe
Rodman Philbrick
Born place: The United States
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“…there is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there. It is hard for me to make sense on any given level. Myself is fabricated, an aberration. I am a noncontingent human being. My personality is sketchy and unformed, my heartlessness goes deep and is persistent. My conscience, my pity, my hopes disappeared a long time ago (probably at Harvard) if they ever did exist. There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it, I have now surpassed. I still, though, hold on to one single bleak truth: no one is safe, nothing is redeemed. Yet I am blameless. Each model of human behavior must be assumed to have some validity. Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do? My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this—and I have countless times, in just about every act I’ve committed—and coming face-to-face with these truths, there is no catharsis. I gain no deeper knowledge about myself, no new understanding can be extracted from my telling. There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. This confession has meant nothing….”
― Bret Easton Ellis, quote from American Psycho
“Why not? Why not? Why not not, then, if the best reasoning you can contrive is why not?”
― David Foster Wallace, quote from Infinite Jest
“For the two of us, home isn't a place. It is a person. And we are finally home.”
― Stephanie Perkins, quote from Anna and the French Kiss
“Now, when their glances met, they understood one another. The power that lay within both their souls had met, and, as it were, clasped hands. They accepted one another's sacrifice. Hers, mayhap, was the more complete of the two, because for her his absence would mean weary waiting, the dull heartache so terrible to bear.”
― Emmuska Orczy, quote from The Scarlet Pimpernel
“It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, quote from The Prince
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