Tom Deaderick > Quotes

“Ethan’s voice was choked. “I realize now, what my father felt. When I left home. He must have felt as if everything was ending. That everything he knew was finishing. I wasn't even aware of what he was going through, how it felt for him. I was so caught up in the excitement of moving out and having a job that would buy me a car. I was so eager to leave. His heart was breaking, and I totally missed it. I was completely unaware that his whole world was changing too. But for him it wasn't gaining, it was losing. He was losing part of himself. The part of his life that had focused on me and my mother for seventeen years was ending, and I never even noticed.”

For a moment, Leo thought Ethan was about to ask him to stay. If he does, I will, Leo thought.

Ethan took a deep breath. “But hard as it is. It can’t be stopped. Can’t be sidestepped. No matter how much we want to or how fearful the future looks, we can’t stay frozen in place. You can go forward or you can try to hold on. I've seen people that were afraid to let go, that never committed to their life. You can feel the desperate regret emanate from them. They know they missed something, but instead of jumping on the next train, they keep looking back for the one they missed.”
― Tom Deaderick, Flightpack

“I’ll live out my whole life as a voice with no one listening.”
― Tom Deaderick, Flightsuit

“The spear's purpose is clear. Mine is clear. And yours is. You're the reason it makes sense, because I'm only interested in saving the world because you're in it. Of course, He knows that.”
― Tom Deaderick, The Lazarus Spear

“Hogan didn't want to give Dick enough runway that he could get his paranoia airborne.”
― Tom Deaderick, The Lazarus Spear

“It's a frustration to get old, giving back hard-won ground.”
― Tom Deaderick, Flightspawn

“Save everyone but show them that you're different and you're an outcast, not a hero.”
― Tom Deaderick, Flightspawn

“Life is more than not dying. Every living creature is born; it grows and dies. The pattern is the same, regardless of the span allotted. You build between the beginning and the end. What you build is yours. Nothing else is.”
― Tom Deaderick, Flightpack

“Parenting is filled with moments that are natural and expected that feel unnatural and unnerving.”
― Tom Deaderick

“Dick kept his eyes on people like a gunfighter stepping up from a poker table to scrape winnings into his hat.”
― Tom Deaderick, The Lazarus Spear

“She reads me at a college level and I'm on Dr. Seuss.”
― Tom Deaderick, Lifeflash

“You'll be the first human to see an entire alien civilization. The bad news being that you won't be able to actually do anything or speak with anyone. You'll just be ignored and alone, like a headache—something to be pushed aside and forgotten.”
― Tom Deaderick

“Distance incubates intelligence.”
― Tom Deaderick, Flightpack

“I think those idiots have stepped into a sack of dog crap on the porch with a 50-megaton firecracker underneath. I think we're about to lose the porch, best case.”
― Tom Deaderick, The Lazarus Spear

“You don't know when the last time you'll ever see someone will be, best to really open your eyes to them.”
― Tom Deaderick, Flightspawn

“Everything in her life had come undone as quickly as rope slipping over a cliff's edge.”
― Tom Deaderick, The Lazarus Spear

“He was like a farmer's hammer, beaten and bent, and broken more than once, but welded back, bent by force of will back into place, still useful because it still could be made useful.”
― Tom Deaderick, Flightspawn

“All the normal ways that you might know someone, what they liked for lunch, their hobbies, their interests, the people they couldn't stand—all the normal data points people constantly, unconsciously collect, none of those data points can predict how someone might react to 'I've decided to try saving the world by stabbing the President with my magic spear'. That's pretty much going to be a gamble every time.”
― Tom Deaderick, The Lazarus Spear

“There are dangerous people ready to pull the seams out of everything you've stitched together, and they can pull apart faster than you can hold.”
― Tom Deaderick, Lifeflash

“It wasn't too far, unless there was someone shooting at you, then it was.”
― Tom Deaderick, Lifeflash

“Jon prepared himself for the end of his life, in fourteen more rounds.”
― Tom Deaderick, Flightspawn

“Every device is the product of mistakes, hundreds or thousands of previous mistakes. You see the results, but you do not see the mistakes.”
― Tom Deaderick, Flightpack

“The drive to be unique is a powerful one. It shapes so much of our lives and the choices we make. I never thought of it before this morning, but the misfit toys are all on the island because they are unique. They are different than expected and were rejected by the world.

On the island, the only thing they actually have in common is their uniqueness.

At the end of the story, we’re glad to see them leaving the island and going to boys and girls with the normal toys, but you have to wonder if they really end up happy there or if they miss their old misfit ones.”
― Tom Deaderick

“They don’t last long. It's horrible and filled with more pain and misery than a full life can hold, but it's rarely a long time. The treatment is too rough and too careless, and they are so fragile.”
― Tom Deaderick, Flightspawn

“Technology has uncovered our world. Hardly a moment goes unrecorded, analytics engines trail our every move, giving us a confidence in the world around us beyond the ken of anyone who lived before us. Everything they knew, we know, the moment we might need to know it.”
― Tom Deaderick, Lifeflash

“People don't realize how thoroughly we teach children to read deception. As soon as they get the basics of communication, adults and older kids start telling them unbelievable things, trying to make them seem believable. As if we know how important the ability to see through other people's lies is critically important. I guess, it is.”
― Tom Deaderick, Flightspawn

“If all you know in life is that you are loved, you can press through anything.”
― Tom Deaderick, Flightpack

“First thing Falvo said after he slapped my arm was, 'What time is it?' I've been with a few other people who wake up after getting shot and being dug around in for a slug. That's the first time anyone ever asked that particular question, like they had something important to attend to and happened to get shot on the way.”
― Tom Deaderick, Lifeflash

“If Steve Jobs reincarnated into a pit bull and was staked with a logging chain and baked in the summer heat, he'd have Dick's attitude about right.”
― Tom Deaderick, The Lazarus Spear

“No living creature lives without mistakes.”
― Tom Deaderick, Flightpack

“I talk to myself and write down the parts that make sense.”
― Tom Deaderick