283 Quotes by Hugh Howey

Was that the way to phrase it? Always have had. It was immortal tense. A new rule of grammar. Always have had gotten friends killed.

I listen to my voice messages like once a month,” I remind Henry. “You should’ve texted me.

Killing a man should be harder than waving a length of pipe in their direction. It should take long enough for one’s conscience to get in the way.

This was the sort of cruelty that only came from turned backs, from being ignored. Well-aimed lashes and direct blows were more easily understood. At least then the stricken knew their anguished cries were being heard.

You just lean into each step, and before you know it, you’re home.

This was what happened to the dying soul; it scrambled for some perch, some stairway to cling to, some way not to fall.

But it’s more than the deaths I saw; it’s the destruction. The noise with which we go seems to make it count for more. I think of my buddies who checked out via hand grenade versus those who died from MRSA back in the VA. We barely notice the latter. They’re statistics. Go quietly, and you’re a number. Go in spectacular fashion, and you’re a name.

Astronauts peer down at the lights of civilization and feel this, I thought. Comfort you can almost reach out and touch. But to cross that gap would kill you. A window in a prison cell.

There was no planning for insanity. With enough revolutions and elections, enough transfers of power, eventually a madman would take the reins.