Southern Reach Quotes

“He had been standing there recognizing that there was a draft in the loft. He had been standing there without realizing that it wasn't a draft. Someone was breathing, behind him. Someone was breathing on his neck. The knowledge froze him, froze the cry of "Jesus fuck!" in his throat. He turned with incredible slowness, wishing he could seem like a statue in his turning. Then saw with alarm a large, pale, watery-blue eye that existed against a backdrop of darkness or dark rags shot through with pale flesh, and which resolved into Whitby. Whitby who had been there the entire time, crammed into the shelf right behind Control, at eye-level, bent at the knees, on his side. Breathing in shallow sharp bursts. Staring out. Like something incubating. There, on the shelf.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Authority

“The ghost bird had found his ghost, on an inexplicable pile of other ghosts.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation

“You tell yourself this is no less or more real than bowling at Chipper's.[...] That this moment is the same as every other moment, that it makes no difference to the atoms, to the air, to the creature whose walls breathe all around you.”
― Jeff VanderMeer