Bryan Bougher

“The jeep, the symbolic, faithful letter carrier, the flag patch… they recalled comfort, innocence, cooperation, an easy life that allowed millions of men and women to relax, to smile or argue as they chose, to be tolerant with one another—and to hope to be better people with the passage of time.”
― John Joseph Adams, Wastelands 2: More Stories of the Apocalypse

“Long since then he’d come to realize that his persistent optimism had to be a form of hysterical insanity. Hell, everybody’s crazy, these days. Yes, he answered himself. But paranoia and depression are adaptive, now. Idealism is only stupid.”
― John Joseph Adams, Wastelands 2: More Stories of the Apocalypse

“I don’t know who it was, but someone, maybe or maybe not Henry James, said that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who upon seeing someone else suffering think, That could happen to me, and those who think, That will never happen to me. The first kind of people help us to endure, the second kind make life hell.”
― Sigrid Nunez, What Are You Going Through

“I notice that capable men are still at a premium in our society; we still need the man who is intelligent enough to think of the proper questions to ask.”
― Isaac Asimov, I, Robot