T. Ellery Hodges > Quotes

“I have not voted in a human presidential election for quite some time, Jonathan. Admittedly, it may not be my place. Still, do you know what really stops me from selecting a candidate?” Jonathan listened but mostly focused on containing his nausea. “It’s a paradox, I know. It just seems that anyone smart enough to know the responsibility of such a seat of power would never be dumb enough to apply for it.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Hero

“to keep a secret, you hide it somewhere you think is hard to find—then, you don’t tell anyone you hid it. When you want to hide a truth, you put it somewhere dark and call it evil, because only the smart or the brave will find it there. In general, this works well for everyone, because the truth is only a threat to the stupid and the cowardly.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Paradox

“You’re worth three of these other retards that I have working for me,” Mr. Fletcher said. For a moment, he’d been flattered; then he realized he’d just been given the value of three retards.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Hero

“umm I'm thirsty," Johnathan finally said. "Slug you want to pass me that bottle of-" "Oh, hell no."Riley said.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Paradox

“As mankind has come to find, there is a dilemma in purging destructive beliefs from society as a whole. To do so is to be guilty of the very thing you abhor: to conclude one view as superior to another’s.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Paradox

“The truth doesn't become a lie just because The Devil is the only one willing to speak it.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Paradox

“I only trust a man with power when he is wise enough not to want it.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Hero

“When you’ve made a commitment to your shame, it does not let go so easily. Still… sometimes the right person says what you most need to hear. And you feel like, maybe, you are still worth the air you breathe.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, Bard Hard

“The last thing you’ll ever have to do for him,”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Hero

“He ran his hand down the surface and felt some imperfections in the steel near the center. He flipped it over to see that the alien had put an engraving into one of the surfaces. “Excali-bar,” Jonathan said out loud. He smiled, rolling his eyes at the alien’s sense of humor.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Hero

“walls. Ribs broke. A lung collapsed. The air rushed out of him and he nearly lost his grasp on consciousness. On the ground floor, he desperately attempted to breathe, but only coughed on mouthfuls of agitated dust. He knew he’d lost. The beast, hurt but not injured, rose to its feet over him, its massive shoulders and head only”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Hero

“It doesn't translate perfectly, but the gist is this; fear is the heart alone.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Hero

“Some things get worse when you share them,” Jonathan said. “Dad was wise enough not to forget that.” Evelyn looked at him and waited, seeming to hope that if he had said this much, he might say more. “Mother,” he said, “there is not enough guilt in the world to make me forget it, either.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Paradox

“There are an infinite number of shades”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Hero

“It’s okay to lose to opponent,” says the teacher, “but must not lose to fear.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Hero

“He’d amassed a number of new enemies. They had names like kettle bell, dead lifts, and overhead press. He’d lost many a confrontation with his arch nemesis, squats.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Hero

“where only maintenance men ever visited, were sheathed in years of built up dust. It was silent by nature—the only noise that”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Hero

“In the end, it was why he’d decided to leave the camera in his bedroom’s ventilation. The day after Diana disappeared, he’d called an escort service and asked for a dark-skinned brunette in business attire and glasses. He’d instructed the operator that he wanted the girl to respond to the name Olive. He always made Olive keep the glasses on, made her face the foot of the bed so she was right in front of the camera. He wanted Olivia’s whole surveillance team to see him pounding a carbon copy of their boss. He wished he could have been there, seen her face when she watched the footage. Bet you lost that composure of yours? Tell the truth, Princess, Did you get excited? Thinking about it, now, he was worked up enough to call and see if Olive was available this evening,”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Paradox

“It read Staff Sergeant Douglas Tibbs with the surviving members of his Army Ranger Strike Team, Libya, 1984.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Hero

“His fist had targeted it as though he’d exploited the weakness a hundred times before.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Paradox

“At first, you’ll want the hurt to go away, to find some way to cut the feelings out of yourself. Then, as time passes, you’ll find yourself clinging to that pain. Somehow, your heart believes that to stop feeling hurt is a betrayal. That it calls into question your own faith in your commitment to the passion you had. “Life is clever, Jonathan. One day you wake up and realize it doesn’t hurt, yet there was never any betrayal. It’s not that your emotions changed, but that you’re no longer the person who felt those things in the first place. That person is in the past, and his feelings were real, but you are no longer him. “That person will have become a story you tell yourself to remember who you thought you were.” She’d”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Hero

“Seriously, when I was in high school I worked at a video store,” Collin said. “One day, this guy I’d worked with for months just loses it, starts talking about how aliens have been watching him. How they’re plotting to take him back to the mother ship. I had to call his mother to come take him to a shrink. He’d been perfectly fine the day before, just like any other day.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Hero

“It was flattering, the amount of resources Olivia used to keep tabs on him.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Paradox

“When I’m around people, they always want to talk. Somewhere along the line, talking got too exhausting, too complicated.” She”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Hero

“He supposed he was like any soldier. The world didn’t need to know he was out there. They certainly shouldn’t want to watch him do whatever he needed to do, become whatever he had to become. They’d reap the benefits of his existence regardless.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Hero

“Though unlikely, alien frailties within Malkier could give the few Ferox who questioned his leadership more reason to mistrust him.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Paradox

“He’d asked his father why it mattered. What was a pair of slacks over a pair of jeans? How was an uncomfortable collar or a tie relevant to showing respect? If they had to be grieving, couldn’t they at least do it in comfortable clothes? He’d been eleven then and his father, patience wearing thin from grief, had let out a tired sigh as he knelt in front of Jonathan to help him with his tie. “Traditions get passed down; they become the rules. Some make sense, some seem pointless, but others,” Douglas said, “others only show their value when you don’t obey them.” “This one seems stupid,” Jonathan responded, squirming in his tight collar as his father finished. “Well,” Douglas said, standing and turning to the mirror to put on his own tie, “I don’t think today is the day that we test the rules.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Hero

“dust. It was silent by nature—the only noise that found its way into the dark passage was the occasional passing of the elevator car. A button would be pressed and the hoist would come to life, taking the lift from one floor to another. The doorway would open, the passenger would exit, and the shaft would return to its hibernation.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Hero

“When you want to hide a truth, you put it somewhere dark and call it evil, because only the smart or the brave will find it there. In general, this works well for everyone, because the truth is only a threat to the stupid and the cowardly.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Paradox

“The human devices are much like that hypothetical computer.”
― T. Ellery Hodges, The Never Paradox