Charlie Huston Quotes

Like I was ever normal. Like I was ever any different from how I am now. A cure won't make me better. It'll just make me more like a regular son of a bitch. Like the Vyrus makes you into something else. It doesn't. If you get it, if you survive, it's because you were already the kind of person who will drink blood.

Not that I have any little kids running around I need to keep away from the guns. I had any kids I'd get rid of the guns. Nothing more dangerous to the life of a child than a house full of firearms. Nothing more dangerous except maybe a parent.

... and look down the glowing store front of a 24 hr bodega. I am not overly concerned about going in there with one bare foot and a considerable amount of dried blood on my clothing. This is the Bronx after all. But best to minimize the visual impact I might make.

Pain cannot be ignored. However, it can be endured. When necessary, a great deal of pain can be endured. Just ask my mother.

Or maybe this is the true order. To bring together the need with the thind that is needed.

The violence for me is never meant to be entertaining. It's meant to hurt the characters and I'm trying to show the impact it is having on the people involved with it. If there is cathartic violence at the end, then it costs the protagonist something. It's not just a blaze-of-glory moment.

Women. You tell me they're not all witches, and I'll tell you you haven't been paying attention.

I size him up. A pasty jumble of limbs in latex-tight sharkskin slacks with three inches of white socks showing at the ankles above two-tone patent leather, a jacket matching the slacks stretched over narrow shoulders and an embroidered cowboy shirt with silver caps on the points of the collar, a bolo tie featuring a cockroach frozen in amber snug around his throat.

It's a puzzler, and I don't want to sound full of myself, but I may just be the Vyrus messiah."
He shakes his head.
"I don't know for sure. Have to meditate on that shit some more. Anyhoo.

The act of reading is so intimate that readers are unpredictable.

At Marcy I spot what I am looking for and shimmy up a lampost and untangle the pair of sneakers that some kid has tossed up there that dangle in testement to some shit that I have never figured out as long as I have lived in this city. I sit on the curb and stuff my feet inside leaving the laces undone. There too small but the right one fits a little better than the left. Not having a big toe is already paying off.

Tell them to drop their guns and fuck off out of my way.
Allow him to
I clamp my arm tight.
That's not what I said.
She gets it right this time.
Drop your guns and fuck off out of his way.
They drop their guns and fuck off out of my way.

I feel like I'm forgetting something. Vyrus. Clans. Zombies. Stay out of the sun. Don't get shot. Abandon your life. Drink blood to survive. No, guess that pretty much covers it.

The enforcer takes an envelope from his side jacket pocket and drops it in one of the scummy puddles.
I look at Predo.
"You rehearse that move in advance?
He shrugs.
"Actually, not. This one has initiative.

She reaches up and ties the strip of black cloth so that it covers my dead eye.
"Now, go Arrghh.
"Arrghh.
She nods.
"There. You're a pirate.

You are going to die in front of dozens of witnesses, and none of them will do a thing to help you or avenge you. Because they know exactly what you know: The world is ending.

Morality he found amusing, in the obscure way that only a man with a Ph.D. in philosophy could find such things amusing, but justice and ethics were inflexible measures, applicable to all, and not to be joked about.

If I saw something once that I can't explain, that doesn't make them real. And if a trick of the dark gave me a chill, that doesn't make them real. And if a madman says what's at the core of us all is a senseless, flapping quiver of black shade, that's just one more reason not to believe.

I'm on page 65 of 368 of Sleepless: I would never dream of killing an excellent tailor, not even to keep a secret that could endanger my life.

One day, when I am a braver man, I will tell her these things, and then I will look her in the eye tell her I love her and ask her to be only mine. But until that day, we're just friends.

The world doesn't just jump out of its axis on its own.

I could flay you and wear your skin as a cloak, and caper in the streets in the moonlight. But some might consider that crass treatment of a guest."
I nod.
"Well, some people got no sense of humor, do they?"
"I am one of those people.

Course you can't fucking see, buddy, it's darker than a nun's virgin anus down here.

When you learn economy. It strips away self-indulgence. Just in the act itself it requires a certain amount of humility. You have to accept the fact that you might feel you can do better but in the moment you have to make a choice.

She makes a stone-face, drops her voice an octave.
-No. No. No. My name is Joe Pitt and I don't do nuthin' I don't want to do and I won't even listen because I don't know a good thing when I have it and I'd rather be all fucked up and tragic and go hurt people.

I wish that the act of publishing a book was less of a nerve-wracking experience.

Parker Haas, crying Omaha, and his sleepless Rose.

The general air of insecurity and affection made it too easy for him to imagine these once-a-year fabulous creatures as the cubicle dwellers most of them were in everyday life.

Yeah, good to see you too.
Her hand stays on the gun.
"Did I say it was good to see you, Joe?
"No, but I always try to read between the lines. Figured you going for your gun was how you express affection these days.

Most undercover cops are vastly skilled at compartmentalization. It is a talent as valued as lying. They seal off their real feelings and create imitation emotions. Easily torn down when it's time to show the badge, drag someone downtown, and sit across from him in an interrogation cell and tell him how fucked he is now.

You can't change the world if your motive is revenge. Vibes like that just aren't productive.

Things are as bad as you fear they are. People are as bad as you think they are. The Universe does not care.

The man breeds lies. He spawns them asexually, with no need for any assistance. He exhales and lies fill the air. Alone in a room, he mutters lies to himself to keep from falling into the trap of truth-telling. In the day, sleeping in his bed, deep in the safest heart of Coalition headquarters, he dreams in lies. The better to keep his left hand from knowing what betrayals his right has planned.