Grace W. > Grace W.'s Quotes

“It's like a cockroach working up a plan to defeat the shoe on its way down to crush it.”
― Rick Yancey, The 5th Wave

“And I open to him, a flower to the rain.”
― Rick Yancey, The 5th Wave

“Time for the world to end.”
― Rick Yancey, The 5th Wave

“You are the human clay," Vosch whispers fiercely in my ear. "And I am Michelangelo. I am the master builder, and you will be my masterpiece.”
― Rick Yancey, The 5th Wave

“Prayers and promises. The one his sister made to him. The unspoken one I made to my sister. Prayers are promises, too, and these are the days of broken promises.”
― Rick Yancey, The 5th Wave

“Tampons. I’m constantly worrying about my stash and if I’ll be able to find more.”
― Rick Yancey, The 5th Wave

“...We got it all wrong, there was no alien swarm descending from the sky in their flying saucers or big metal walkers like something out of Star Wars or cute little wrinkly E.T.s who just wanted to pluck a couple of leaves, eat some Reese's Pieces, and go home. That's not how it ends.”
― Rick Yancey, The 5th Wave

“You do not think much of me, do you, Cogburn?"

"I don't think about you at all when your mouth is closed.”
― Charles Portis, True Grit

“MR.GOUDY: I believe you testified that you backed away from Aaron Wharton.
MR.COGBURN: That is right.
MR.GOUDY: You were backing away?
MR.COGBURN: Yes sir. He had that ax raised.
MR.GOUDY: Which direction were you going?
MR.COGBURN: I always go backwards when I am backing up.”
― Charles Portis, True Grit

“He drank even as he rode, which looked difficult. I cannot say it slowed him down any, but it did make him silly. Why do people wish to be silly?”
― Charles Portis, True Grit

“He knew the truth. Yes, my dear child, he would undoubtedly tell a terrified toddler tremulously seeking succor, monsters are real. I happen to have one hanging in my basement.”
― Rick Yancey, The Monstrumologist

“Perhaps that is our doom, our human curse, to never really know one another. We erect edifices in our minds about the flimsy framework of word and deed, mere totems of the true person, who, like the gods to whom the temples were built, remains hidden. We understand our own construct; we know our own theory; we love our own fabrication. Still . . . does the artifice of our affection make our love any less real?”
― Rick Yancey, The Monstrumologist

“Our enemy is fear. Blinding, reason-killing fear. Fear consumes the truth and poisons all the evidence, leading us to false assumptions and irrational conclusions.”
― Rick Yancey, The Monstrumologist

“Memories can bring comfort to the old and infirm, but memories can also be implacable foes, a malicious army of temporal ghosts forever pillaging the long-sought-after peace of our twilight years.”
― Rick Yancey, The Monstrumologist

“Yes, my dear child, monsters are real. I happen to have one hanging in my basement.”
― Rick Yancey, The Monstrumologist

“Self-pity is egotism undiluted, after all—self-centeredness in its purest form.”
― Rick Yancey, The Monstrumologist

“Snap to, Will Henry!”
― Rick Yancey, The Monstrumologist

“A child has little defense against the sight of a parent laid low. Parents, like the earth beneath our feet and the sun above our heads, are immutable objects, eternal and reliable. If one should fall, who might vouch the sun itself won't fall, burning, into the sea?”
― Rick Yancey, The Monstrumologist

“Could there be irony crueler than this? How, upon his rescue, the truth had brought him here, to a house for the mad, for only a madman believes what every child knows to be true: There are monsters that lie in wait under our beds.”
― Rick Yancey, The Monstrumologist

“We are very much like them: indiscriminate killers, ruled by drives little acknowledged and less understood, mindlessly territorial and murderously jealous - the only significant difference being that they have yet to master our expertise in hypocrisy, the gift of our superior intellect that enables us to slaughter one another in droves, more often than not under the auspices of an approving god!”
― Rick Yancey, The Monstrumologist

“That's a stupid question,' said Malachi. 'Because he didn't warn him. He didn't warn anyone.'
'No, it's a philosophical question,' Kearns corrected him. 'Which makes it useless, not stupid.”
― Rick Yancey, The Monstrumologist

“We are slaves, all of us...Some are slaves to fear. Others are slaves to reason—or base desire. It is our lot to be slaves...and the question must be to what shall we owe our indenture? Will it be to truth or to falsehood, hope or despair, light or darkness? I choose to serve the light, even though that bondage often lies in darkness.”
― Rick Yancey, The Monstrumologist

“I assure you, Constable Morgan, I am quite sane, as I understand the word, perhaps the sanest person in this room, for I suffer from no illusions. I have freed myself, you see, from the pretense that burdens most men. Much like our prey, I do not impose order where there is none; I do not pretend there is any more than what there is, or that you and I are anything more than what we are. That is the essence of their beauty, Morgan, the aboriginal purity of their being, and why I admire them.”
― Rick Yancey, The Monstrumologist

“...Grimacing, I plunged a hand into the fouled water to clear the clog, morbid curiosity drawing my youthful eyes to the gray globs of gore floating upon the surface. It was not horror that seized my imagination so much as wonder: sixty years of dreams and desires, hunger and hope, love and longing, blasted away in a single explosive instant, mind and brain. The mind of Erasmus Gray was gone; the remnants of its vessel floated, as light and insubstantial as popcorn, in the water. Which fluffy bit held your ambition, Erasmus Gray? Which speck your pride? Ah, how absurd the primping and preening of our race! Is it not the ultimate arrogance to believe we are more than is contained in our biology? What counterarguments may be put forth, what valid objections raised, to the claim of Ecclesiastes, "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity"?”
― Rick Yancey, The Monstrumologist

“Have you fallen in love, Will Henry?"

"That's stupid."

"What is? Love, or my question?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know? You've tried that trick once. What do you suppose it will work better the second time?"

"I don't love her. She bothers me."

"You have just defined the very thing you denied.”
― Rick Yancey, The Isle of Blood

“You are the nest. You are the hatchling. You are the chrysalis. You are the progeny. You are the rot that falls from stars. You may not understand what I mean.

You will.”
― Rick Yancey, The Isle of Blood

“And red is not the color of apples or roses or the dresses that pretty girls wear in the summertime.

That is not the color of red at all.”
― Rick Yancey, The Isle of Blood

“He stiffened and said with great dignity, "I am a natural scientist. We are accustomed to dealing with shit.”
― Rick Yancey, The Isle of Blood

“Just because a man is a homicidal maniac doesn't make him wrong.”
― Rick Yancey, The Isle of Blood

“What of men? I can't think of anything more banal. I have no doubt — no doubt whatsoever — that once it has obtained the means to do so, the species will wipe itself off the face of the earth. There is no mystery to it; it is our nature. Oh, one might delve into the particulars, but really, what can we say about the species that invented murder? What can we say?”
― Rick Yancey, The Isle of Blood