Josh Malerman > Quotes

“It's better to face madness with a plan than to sit still and let it take you in pieces.”
― Josh Malerman, Bird Box

“How can she expect her children to dream as big as the stars if they can't lift their heads to gaze upon them?”
― Josh Malerman, Bird Box

“In a world where you can’t open your eyes, isn’t a blindfold all you could ever hope for?”
― Josh Malerman, Bird Box

“You can smell it, too. Death. Dying. Decay. The sky is falling, the sky is dying, the sky is dead.”
― Josh Malerman, Bird Box

“We left because some people choose to wait for news and others make their own.”
― Josh Malerman, Bird Box

“The moment between deciding to open your eyes and then actually doing it is as scary a thing as there is in the new world.”
― Josh Malerman

“You are saving their lives for a life not living.”
― Josh Malerman, Bird Box

“Is he friendly?” Tom says quietly. “I’ve discovered,” Jules says, “that a dog will become fast friends with the people who feed him.”
― Josh Malerman, Bird Box

“Man is the creature he fears.”
― Josh Malerman, Bird Box

“Your baby is smarter than you think.”
― Josh Malerman, Bird Box

“The older I get, the more I think the barometer for intelligence is how kind you are. Because it’s not an easy thing to do, staying mindful, after all you go through in life.”
― Josh Malerman, Incidents Around the House

“dedication Sometimes I wish I were an architect, so that I could dedicate a building to a person; a superstructure that broke the clouds and continued up into the abyss. And if Bird Box were made of bricks instead of letters, I’d host a ceremony, invite every shadowy memory I have, and cut the ribbon with an axe, letting everyone see for the first time that building’s name. It’d be called the Debbie. Mom, Bird Box is for you.”
― Josh Malerman, Bird Box

“That’s real cruelty. That’s world cruelty. Where it’s not just the idea that one person is cruel, it’s that they believe, and have reason to believe, the whole world feels the same.”
― Josh Malerman, Incidents Around the House

“Maybe a thing has to be smart enough to lose its mind.”
― Josh Malerman, Bird Box

“If there’s one thing I could convey to you, one thing that would take root in you just like the need to eat and sleep, it would be this: try to stay kind as long as you can.”
― Josh Malerman, Incidents Around the House

“This,’ Malorie says, placing a bloodied hand on the Girl’s head, ‘this is Olympia.’ The Girl looks at Malorie quickly. She blushes. She smiles. She likes it. ‘And this,’ Malorie says, pressing the Boy to her body, ‘is Tom.’ He grins, shy and happy.”
― Josh Malerman, Bird Box

“Robin was a great kid. Smarter than her father at eight years old. She liked the oddest things. Like the instructions for a toy more than the toy itself. The credits of a movie instead of the movie. The way something was written. An expression on my face. Once she told me I looked like the sun to her, because of my hair. I asked her if I shined like the sun, and she told me, ‘No, Daddy, you shine more like the moon, when it’s dark outside.”
― Josh Malerman, Bird Box

“If you think about it, every time you’ve ever been scared in your life so far, you’ve also survived whatever you were scared of. Right? You’ve literally gotten through everything you thought you might not. Everything you thought you weren’t strong enough to get through…you got through it. Or else you wouldn’t be here to know you got through it. Right?”
― Josh Malerman, Incidents Around the House

“MAN IS THE CREATURE HE FEARS.”
― Josh Malerman

“A grisly story, but one whose notoriety Malorie attributes to the seemingly senseless way the Internet has of making random occurrences famous.”
― Josh Malerman, Bird Box

“Your worries only keep you safe long enough to worry some more.”
― Josh Malerman, Bird Box

“What was dark but the absence of light?”
― Josh Malerman, A House at the Bottom of a Lake

“When one thing leaves your house or heart, it makes room for another to take its place. This is why it’s unwise to make solid statues inside. A statue takes up space without moving, without flowing, without growing.”
― Josh Malerman, Incidents Around the House

“As long as nobody knew what it was, nobody could take it from her.”
― Josh Malerman, A House at the Bottom of a Lake

“The children have never seen the world outside their home. Not even through the windows. And Malorie hasn’t looked in more than four years. Four years.”
― Josh Malerman, Bird Box

“I don’t think it’s a matter of one man being better prepared than another,’ Gary is saying. ‘I think of it more like a 3-D movie. At first, the audience thinks the objects are really coming at them. They hold their hands up for protection. But the intelligent ones, the ones who are very aware, know they were safe all along.”
― Josh Malerman, Bird Box

“It’s all right to be nervous. You’ll learn soon enough in life that everybody’s nervous about something and it’s the ones who do the things they need to do anyway who end up getting the most out of it.”
― Josh Malerman, Incidents Around the House

“Guilt cannot be overcome, only endured.”
― Josh Malerman, Unbury Carol

“Only a box of birds, Malorie thinks. Yet, it does feel like progress.”
― Josh Malerman, Bird Box

“But a madman at ease is safer than a sane woman unsettled.”
― Josh Malerman, Malorie