Scott Smith > Quotes

“By doing one wrong thing, I thought I could make everything right.”
― Scott B. Smith, A Simple Plan

“I didn't feel evil. I felt nervous, scared, nothing more.”
― Scott B. Smith, A Simple Plan

“Life's a drag. There is no gravity. Earth Sucks!”
― Scott Smith

“Stacy wasn't certain; she'd never bothered to pay attention to details like that, and was always regretting it, the half knowing, which felt worse than not knowing at all, the constant sense that she had things partly right, but not right enough to make a difference.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“Maybe there isn’t a way,” he said. “Maybe all we can do is wait and hope and endure for as long as we’re able. The food will run out. Our bodies will fail. And the vine will do whatever it’s going to do.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“Trying to remember things.” It was what people did, Amy had decided, as they waited for death; they lay there struggling to remember the details of their lives, all the events that had seemed so impossible to forget while they were being suffered through, the things tasted and smelled and heard, the thoughts that had felt like revelations, and now Jeff was doing this, too. He’d given up. They weren’t going to survive this place; they were going to end just like Henrich, shot full of arrows, the vines coiling and flowering around their bones.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“That was what they were so clearly doing here: they were waiting. And not in any suspense, either, not in any anxiety as to the outcome of their vigil. They were waiting with no apparent emotion at all, as one might sit over the course of an evening, watching a candle methodically burn itself into darkness, never less than certain of the outcome, confident that the only thing standing between now and the end of waiting was time itself.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“It waits till we’re weak before it reveals its strength.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“The miserable misery of the miser,”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“all the lies people utter around death in order to comfort themselves, to bury their grief with the body, but here, suddenly, they were true. Die, Eric said in his head. Do it now, just die. And all the while—yes, implacably, inexorably—the Greek’s breathing continued its ragged course.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“Stacy waited till she was certain he’d fallen asleep, then slipped free of his grasp, edging backward, leaving his hand lying open on the tent’s floor, palm up, slightly cupped, like a beggar’s. She imagined dropping a coin into it, late at night on some dark city street; she pictured herself hurrying off, never to see him again.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“he’d believed that he was smarter and more disciplined than the others, and that these traits alone might save them. He was a fool, though; he could see that now. He’d been a fool to cut off Pablo’s legs. All he’d managed to do was prolong the Greek’s suffering. And he’d been a fool—worse than a fool, so much worse—to sit there pouting while, fifteen feet away from him, Amy had choked to death. Even if, through some miracle, he managed to leave this place alive, he couldn’t see how he’d ever be able to survive that memory.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“If you’re not careful, you can reach a point where you’ve made choices without thinking. Without planning. You can end up not living the life you’d meant to. Maybe one you deserve, but not one you intended.” Here he wagged his finger again. “Make sure you think,” he said. “Make sure you plan.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“They both knew who she was, how she’d rather be with the group, doing something she didn’t like, than alone, doing something she enjoyed.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“She and Stacy both turned from Eric to smile at Jeff, as if taunting him. He didn’t respond—what was the point? Clearly, it had already been decided: they were going to the village. Pablo finally stopped talking; Mathias was putting the cap back on the water bottle. Jeff shouldered his pack. “Shall we?” he said.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“By this time tomorrow, they’d all be saved. No one was going to have to drink any urine, any dew.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“They all stood there, staring, shading their eyes against the sunlight. It was a beautiful sight: a hill shaped like a giant breast, covered in red flowers.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“It will be whatever it is, no? Nothing, something—our believing one thing or another will matter not at all in the end.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“There were so many rules to remember. No wonder people ended up in places they’d never chosen to be.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“liar’s smile”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“It also seemed possible that they were trading the names around, that this was part of the joke, so the one who answered to Pablo on Tuesday would smilingly insist on Wednesday that he was Juan.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“He was shier than she would’ve guessed; even that evening, standing so near, the rain spattering against the taut fabric only inches above their heads, he hadn’t dared to kiss her good night. This was still to come, another week or so in the future, and it was nice that way; it gave weight to the other things, the smaller gestures, his arm hooking hers as they stepped out from beneath the brightly lighted marquee onto the rain-slick streets. She almost spoke of it now, but then stopped herself, worried he might not have any memory of the moment, that what had felt so touching to her, so joyous, had been an idle gesture on his part, a response to the inclement weather rather than a timid advance toward her heart.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“Recalls The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the better work of Jim Thompson (The Grifters; After Dark, My Sweet) and Thomas Berger’s tales of small-town souls who succumb to murderous mayhem.”
― Scott B. Smith, A Simple Plan

“Her face had a strange look to it. It wasn’t horror, which was what I’d dreaded most; it was something closer to fear—apprehension tinged with perplexity—and beneath it all, just the slightest hint of disapproval, sitting there like a seed, waiting to learn more before it sprouted and grew.”
― Scott Smith, A Simple Plan

“There was so much to contest in this that she felt something like panic in the face of it, a buzzing sensation rising in her head.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“Her crying got louder and louder. The sound of it gave me a headache”
― Scott Smith, A Simple Plan

“She had the momentary impulse—absurd and inappropriate and quickly repressed—to reach forward and touch his penis.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“I was doomed now, trapped, that the rest of my life would pivot somehow off this single act, that in trying to save Jacob, I’d damned us both.”
― Scott Smith, A Simple Plan

“No, I don’t want to go, but she knew she couldn’t say this. She complained too much; everyone said so. She was a gloomy person. She didn’t have the gift of happiness; somewhere along the way, someone had neglected to give it to her, and now she made everyone else suffer for her lack of it.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“The money, by giving us the chance to dream, had also allowed us to begin despising our present lives.”
― Scott Smith, A Simple Plan