283 Quotes by Hugh Howey

Heroes have warts; villains have soft spots. Main characters don’t always learn their lessons because all too often we don’t, either. There isn’t always a happy ending, but sometimes there is.

We are all of us – everywhere and at all times – mere visitors.

The fact that the universe can come to this, that anyone finds it normal, is comically absurd.

Juliette felt a wash of fear and relief, those two opposites twisting together like staircase and rail.

Even if nobody sees them or remembers them, that doesn’t matter. That trail will always be what happened, what we did, every choice. The past lives on forever. There’s no changing it.” “Makes.

The short-term rage to be sated at the end of a barrel was too easy to act on. Staving off extinction required something else, something with more vision, something impossibly patient.

Holston lifted an old boot to an old step, pressed down, and did it again. He lost himself in what the untold years had done, the ablation of molecules and lives, layers and layers ground to fine dust. And he thought, not for the first time, that neither life nor staircase had been meant for such an existence. The tight confines of that long spiral, threading.

Sheltering the women and the children played some part; Troy was sure of that. The women and children of Silo One had been gifted with a long sleep while the men stayed and took shifts. It removed the passion from the plans, forestalled the chance that the men might fight among themselves.

All our hope, the accomplishments of those before us, what the world can be like, that’s our Legacy.” Bernard’s lips broke into a smile. He waved his hand to continue. “And the bad things that can’t be stopped, the mistakes that got us here, that’s the past.