Angie

“A knock on the door when you were not expecting one felt to Emily like literal violence. People who just…showed up at your house? Completely unnerving. It was an older-generation thing, she knew, to simply “pop by” unannounced. But her generation didn’t even like to take or make phone calls, thank you, much less answer the door for a total fucking stranger.”
― Chuck Wendig, Black River Orchard

“Or maybe,” Miriam seethes, “men swim in a septic pool of bad ideas about tough guys and big dicks, and they float there, soaking in it, gulping down mouthfuls of that shit, and it gets inside them, infects them, makes their blood go black and sour. Fathers take their sons and shove their heads down under the water, too, just to make sure they all get a taste. Maybe men are fucking broken. You ever think that?”
― Chuck Wendig, Vultures

“Gabby has friends now from waitressing, but Miriam does not share those friends because, at least as Miriam tells it, Miriam does not like people. (In more honest moments, she knows she admits to herself that she’s really afraid of connecting with people—new people in particular. Because people are fragile. Relationships are doomed. People up and fucking die on you, or they betray you, or they just stop caring. In less-honest moments, Miriam tells herself it’s because she’s a rebel, Dottie. A loner. And that’s cool, isn’t it? Aren’t all the cool kids aloof and standoffish and smart-assed?)”
― Chuck Wendig, Vultures

“Each book, a treasure chest of knowledge. And the advent of the modern library did not disturb him: The introduction of computers and other “screens” into libraries only increased that access to information. That was key, he long felt, to an informed society, one that cleaved to both empathy and critical thinking: access to information. Simply being able to know things—true things!—meant the world to him. And better still, reference librarians served well in the role that the internet never did: They were the perfect bouncers at the door of bad information. Or, put differently, they were the best vectors to transmit truth. Just as diseases required strong vectors to survive, thrive, and spread, Benji always felt that the power of a healthy society hinged on powerful vectors that allowed good information to do the same: survive, thrive, spread. Unhealthy societies quashed truth-tellers, hid facts, and curtailed debate (often at the end of a sword or rifle). Information, as the saying went, wanted to be free. And a healthy society understood that and helped it to be so. And libraries were the perfect, shining example of that assistance.”
― Chuck Wendig, Wanderers