Dan Wells Quotes

Brooke Watson was the most beautiful girl in school, and she was my age, and she lived two houses down from me, and I could pick out her scent in a massive crowd.

Humans aren't defined by death, and they're not defined by what they lack. They're defined by their connections.

It doesn't matter what other people think when you're right - John Cleaver

I need a sample of your blood,' said Kira.
Marcus raised an eyebrow. 'I didn't know we'd reached that stage of our relationship.

I chose to follow you," he said, and his voice was deep and rich. "And I'll find you again.

The books in the library were old, rotted, and there was no one left in the world to read them, but Kira made sure that none of them went into the fire. It seemed wrong.

People feared what was different, and whoever was the most different would win the witch-hunt lottery.

Hello, Kanta. They're saying interesting things about you on the news," she said. "I wondered if you'd survived."
"He didn't," I said. "I killed him."
Silence.
"I killed Mkhai, too," I said. "Tens of thousands of years, gone in the blink of an eye."
"Why are you telling me this?" asked the voice.
"Because you're next," I said. "I'm the demon slayer. Come and get me.

The last to fall were the buildings, distant and solemn, the gravestones for an entire world.

So, your plan is to murder a superior enemy army," said Tovar, "and then outrun the wind. I'm glad it's so simple.

You want to be happy, that's what everybody wants. You just don't
know what will make you happy.

Facts are too busy being true to worry about how you feel about them.

By Saturday night we still didn't have Jeb's body. Mom and I ate dinner quietly, letting the shared pizza and the noise of the TV substitute for the companionship and conversation of a real relationship. The Simpsons was on, but I wasn't really watching - I wanted that body. If the police kept it much longer, we wouldn't be able to embalm it at all, just seal it in a bag and hold a closed-casket funeral.

Even if I didn't have any empathy, she did, and that meant I could use it against her. Where logic failed, guilt might save the day.

That was how the Son of Sam had ended his letter: Let me haunt you with these words: I'll be back! I'll be back!

If other things must be destroyed in order for fire to exist, that's all right with fire. As far as fire is concerned, that's what those things are there for in the first place.

If I'm going to spend the whole night waiting for you guys to stop flirting and shoot each other, I want to at least be entertained.

Serial killers are usually - virtually always, in fact - slaves to their own compulsions. They kill because they have to, and they can't stop themselves. I don't want to get to that point, so I set up rules about smaller things - like how I like to watch people, but I don't let myself watch one person for too long. If I do, I force myself to ignore that person for a whole week, and not even think about it.

Was he angry? Was he hungry? The shifting theories of the police were ominous and tantalizing - what could attack so brutally, yet so carefully, that the evidence pointed to both man and beast? I imagined swift claws and bright teeth slashing through moonlight and flesh, sending arcs of blood high onto the wall behind.

The most important thing you can ever know, is that whatever your purpose is, that's not your only choice.

I'm sorry," he said again. "I think I'm in love. . ." He paused. "I don't think she even knows.

I am stronger than my trials.

Life is too short. It's too precious. We have to live in this world, but we don't have to wallow in it. We don't have to fill our lives with all of this darkness.

That chick makes the monsters under my bed have nightmares.

In my biology class, we'd talked about the definition of life: to be classified as a living creature, a thing needs to eat, breathe, reproduce, and grow. Dogs do, rocks don't, trees do, plastic doesn't. Fire, by that definition, is vibrantly alive. It eats everything from wood to flesh, excreting the waste as ash, and it breathes air just like a human, taking in oxygen and emitting carbon. Fire grows, and as it spreads, it creates new fires that spread out and make new fires of their own. Fire drinks gasoline and excretes cinders, it fights for territory, it loves and hates. Sometimes when I watch people trudging through their daily routines, I think that fire is more alive than we are–brighter, hotter, more sure of itself and where it wants to go. Fire doesn't settle; fire doesn't tolerate; fire doesn't 'get by.'
Fire does.
Fire is.

If you want to survive in this world, you need to stop asking why people work together, and just start working together.

Finally Marcus stepped forward. "If you insist on going through me to get him, it's your call. But I warn you, I will probably cry when you hurt me, and you'll fell bad about it later."
Vinci looked at him. "That's your defiant speech?"
"Get used to it," said Marcus. "There's a lot more useless heroics where that came from.

Rigor mortis was caused by a natural build-up of calcium in the muscles; living bodies used that calcium for various things, but in dead bodies it just built up and built up until the muscles grew rigid. In a day or so she'd be loose again from decay, but for now we had to knead the calcium out by hand, stroking and pressing and rubbing the flesh until it was soft and pliable.

I wanted everything to stay the same, but you wanted things to be better, it's just ... going to be a whole lot worse for awhile first. And I think I knew that, and I was scared of it. - Marcus

Embalming was like ... I don't know how to describe it. It was like playing with a giant doll, dressing it and bathing it and opening it up to see what was inside.

Nobody watched people that much, and for that long, except me, and I had serious emotional problems.

Life is a lone wolf, scratching out a living with teeth and claws and a heart of stone.

No matter why you're here, no matter why any of us are here, you're never tied down to fate. You're never locked in.

Curing RM is in the realm of magical pixies and talking dogs that piss whiskey. It's impossible.

Nobody told nature what to do.

What, do you think I sell puppies?

Love is when you find something so great, so ... necessary, that it becomes more important to you than your own goals, than your own life - not because your life has no meaning without it, but because it gives your life a meaning it never had before.

I've never been this wet in my life, " said Kira. "Even immersed in a bathtub I swear I was dryer than I am now. "
"Look on the bright side, " said Marcus.
Kira waited.
"This is the point at which you would traditionally suggest a bright side. "
"I've never been a real traditional guy," said Marcus. "Besides, I'm not saying I know a bright side, I just think this would be a great time to look at one.

Somehow it felt appropriate that the only person who thought I was sweet was a woman who lived with a demon.

Fire is a brief, temporary thing - the very definition of impermanence. It comes suddenly, roaring into life when heat and fuel come together and ignite, and dances hungrily while everything around it blackens and curls. When there is nothing left to consume, it disappears, leaving nothing behind but the ash of its unused fuel - those bits of wood and leaf and paper that were too impure to burn, too unworthy to join the fire in its dance.

You'll never see us coming.

so you picked the most popular one as your 'look how normal I am' answer if anyone ever asked." I sighed again and shrugged. "Fine, you got me. And

Could I stop myself? Once I tore that wall down, could I rebuild it? Did

I think it's interesting," he said, "that you used the word 'compulsions.' That kind of removes the issue of responsibility."
"But I'm taking responsibility," I said. "I'm trying to stop it."
"You are," he said, "and that's very admirable, but you started this whole conversation by saying that 'fate' wants you to be a serial killer. If you tell yourself that it's your destiny to become a serial killer, then aren't you really just dodging reponsibility by passing the blame to fate?

That figures," said Mom, stepping in from the landing and closing the door. "The only member of this family with a normal relationship is a sociopath.

I'm a good person," I said, "because I know what good people are supposed to act like, and I copy them.

It's not John who wants to cut his mother into tiny pieces, it's Mr. Monster. See? I feel better already.

Jayden laughed grimly. 'Press the attack and hope for the best.'
'Hope is not a strategy,' said Kira
'It's not plan A,' said Jayden, 'and it shouldn't be plan B, but it is every plan C that has ever been made.

I'd rather know how you feel than hope and wonder and delude myself for weeks on end ...

None of this is by accident, and we have to figure out what it all means. She paused. We have to. It's the same old argument I used to have with Mkele: the present or the future. Sometimes you have to put the present through hell to get the future you want.

You're weird, man," said Max, taking another bite of his sandwich. "That's all there is to say. Someday you're going to kill a whole bunch of people probably more than ten, because you're such an overachiever - and then they're going to have me on TV and ask if I saw this corning, and I'm going to say, 'Hell yes, that guy was seriously screwed up.'"
"Then I guess I have to kill you first," I said.

Love's not the point. We just do what we always do, and we get by.

We're not talking about pitching in, we're talking about institutionalized rape. We're talking about the government taking full control over your body
what it's for, what you do with it, and what other people can do to it. I'm not letting some horny old dude screw me just because the law says I have to. - Xochi

She thought no one could see her. I thought she was beautiful.

It's like ... I can throw away my whole life trying to help somebody else, but i can only do something for me if I know it doesn't matter.

I'd made a long list of exceptions to cover the area between "ignoring her completely" and "abducting her at knifepoint.

You don't have to march into hell every single time they open the gate.

Isolde took a swig. "It doesn't matter if you believe it or not. Your government just gave you two months to get knocked up." She held up the bottle, her face dull and red. "Cheers."
"You better get your fill of the booze now, then," said Xochi. "You'll be drinking for two pretty soon.

I never thought I had a heart until it was broken. It's hard to see the point of something that only ever causes pain.

Trust me, from one sociopath to another: if you don't understand the reason for something, it's always love.

I'd like to think humans have a stronger sense of justice than the random forces of nature do.

This was it. This was what I had never felt before--an emotional connection to another human being. I'd tried kindness, I'd tried love, I'd tried friendship. I'd tried talking and sharing and watching, and nothing had ever worked until now. Until fear. I felt her fear in every inch of my body like an electric hum, and I was alive for the first time. I needed more right then or the craving would eat me alive.

Her face softened and she peered into my face with concern. "You don't look happy at all."
"He never does," said Brooke, and looked at me with an expression almost identical to the woman's. "He's happy sometimes, though. More often than you think."
"How can you tell?" the woman asked.
Brooke nodded sagely. "The dog's still alive.

My parents never got along super well, but it had grown worse in the last year before he left. Eventually he moved to an apartment on the other side of town, where he stayed for almost five months while the divorce wound its way through the intestinal tract of the county courts. I

An unborn child in its mother's womb feels warmth and motion, sees light and dark through the thick red filter of its mother's own body. Its brain begins to process these sensations before it even finishes developing, an insatiable learning machine that is already defining the world months before it understands, on any conscious level, that the world exists.

Just because I don't like you very much doesn't mean I don't love you," said Kessler. "I raised you for ten years; you're my daughter whether you like it or not.

[...] Mom's not keeping me out because it's a dead friend, she's keeping me out because it's a dead sixteen-year-old girl with no clothes on'
'And that's officially the creepiest thing you've ever said,' said Lauren. She stopped typing, and then grimaced and shivered, like she'd just eaten something disgusting. 'Seriously – yuck.'
I smiled. 'I've got a live girlfriend – what do I need a dead one for?'
[…]
Lauren folded her arms. 'How do I know you're not just trying to get her out of the house for your own nefarious purposes?'
I smiled. 'What kind of trouble am I going to get into? The dead girl doesn't get here until tomorrow.

Tissue gas was most common in bedsores - big, nasty ones on hospital patients, or on old people who never moved for weeks or months at a time. Gangrene was another possible source of the bacteria, and usually showed up in the same types of cases. It was possible that this body could have developed tissue gas in one of those ways if she'd been held in one place for months on end, without being allowed to move.

Enough about body language," said Kira. "I want to practice the link so hit me."
"Hitting you won't make the link easier to detect."
"It's an expression," said Kira.

Trust me," I said, "from one sociopath to another: if you don't understand the reason for something, it's always love." He

I can't imagine you not saying a word," said Marcus."I think you'd go crazy first.

People wanted the explanation to be as big and flashy as the killings themselves, but the truth was far more terrifying: true terror doesn't come from giant monsters but from small, innocent-looking people.

Hold her arm out. I grabbed the body's right arm and pulled it straight. Rigor mortis makes a body so stiff you can barely move it, but it only lasts about a day and a half and this one had been dead so long the muscles had all relaxed again. Though the skin was papery, the flesh underneath was soft, like dough. Margaret sprayed the arm with disinfectant and began wiping it gently with a cloth.

Marcus smiled back at her nervously, eyeing not only the rifle but the pair of knives he now saw clipped to her belt. Not one knife - a pair of knives. Who needs two knives? How many things does she have to cut at once? He was in no hurry to find out.

A plaque at the door congratulated her for climbing 1,860 individual stairs, and she nodded as she caught her breath. "Just my luck," she gasped. "I'm going to have the best glutes left in the planet, and there nobody here to see them.

It wasn't my mom at all, it was her sister Margaret - they were twins, and when their faces were masked I could barely tell the difference. Margaret's voice was a little lighter, though, a little more ... energetic. I figured it was because she'd never been married.

I used to have a list of people I was going to kill one day. It was against my rules now, but sometimes I really missed that list.

It's easier to fall back into the same old patterns of hate and retribution, because at least then we're doing something.

I wanted to do it again tonight. When I had Agent Harris unconscious in the bathroom - I wanted to hurt him and crush him and cut him until you couldn't even tell who he was anymore, but I didn't. Because I don't let a broken brain tell me what to do. Because who you're supposed to be has nothing to do with who you actually are.

What's changed is that your high-minded morality is suddenly faced with consequences. Every choice has them.
Sometimes with the stakes this high a choice you would never make before, that you would never consider in any other circumstances, becomes the only moral option. The only action you can take and still live with yourself in the morning.

That's not because I'm dead, it's because I'm smart.

I've picked a side," she said darkly. "And everyone's on it. And that's exactly who I'm going to save.

Had Jeb Jolley been attacked by a serial killer? It was certainly possible, but which kind? The FBI split serial killers into two categories: organized and disorganized. An organized killer was like Ted Bundy - suave, charming, and intelligent, who planned his crimes and covered them up as well as he could afterward. A disorganized killer was like the Son of Sam, who struggled to control his inner demons and then killed suddenly and brutally each time those demons broke free. He called himself Mr. Monster. Which kind had killed Jeb, the sophisticate or the monster?

Skousen remembered a world falling apart. Kira remembered a world pulling together to save itself. That was the difference. That was why Skousen and the Senate were too afraid to do what it took to solve this. If it was going to get done, it would have to be the plague babies who did it.

Fear is a ... it's a weird thing, when you think about it. People are only afraid of other things, they're never afraid of themselves.

When a clown kills somebody, that's new - that's something you've never seen before. Here's someone you thought was good, and he's doing something so terrible that normal human emotion can't even deal with it - and then he turns around and does something good again. That's fascinating. It's not weird to be obsessed with that, it's weird not to be.

Tissue gas was an embalmer's worst nightmare - a highly infectious form of bacteria that thrived on dead tissue and released a noxious gas inside the body. Smell was usually the easiest way to detect it, but sometimes, as with this body, the smell was buried under other chemicals, and the only way to identify it was the 'skin-slip' Mom had found on the back, where interior gas bubbles separated the skin from the muscle. The gas itself was bad enough, because the stink would soon become so foul it would be all but impossible to cover up; that didn't reflect well on us when people showed up for the viewing. Even worse than the gas though, were the bacteria that made it. Once they got into your workspace, you might never get them out again. If we didn't put a stop to this right now, every body we embalmed would catch the same bacteria from our tools and table. It could destroy the entire business.

Your life is defined by death, and each time you face it you grow stronger. You learn more, and feel more. It sounds stupid to say it like this, but not dying makes you more alive.

When our ancestors were attacked at Pearl Harbor, they called it a day that would live in infamy. The day the Partials attacked us with the RM Virus will not live in anything, because there will be none of us left to remember it.
-President David R. Cregan, March 21, 2065, in a press conference at the White House. Three hours later he hanged himself.

I'm a sociopath, Mom, I don't love anybody. By definition.'
'Is that an implicit threat?'
'Oh, for the-! No, it was not a threat, Okay, I'm leaving.

What was it my father used to say? she thought. "I am stronger than my trials." I am stronger than my trials.

It seems to me that fire leaves nothing behind at all - the ash really isn't part of the flame, it's part of the fuel. Fire changes it from one thing to another, drawing off its energy and turning it into . . . well, into more fire. Fire doesn't create anything new, it simply is. If other things must be destroyed in order for fire to exist, that's all right with fire. As far as fire is concerned, that's what those things are there for in the first place. When they're gone, the fire goes, too, and though you may find evidence of its passing you'll find nothing of the fire itself - no light, no heat, no tiny red fragments of cast-off flame. It disappears back to wherever it came from, and if it feels or remembers, we have no way of knowing if it feels or remembers us.

Was that the girl who went to Manhattan with you?" Asked Marcus. "I think we owe her a cookie" "I think we owe her a whole damn bakery" said Xochi. "If I wasn't hip deep on the mud, I would kiss her on the mouth

Embrace your complexity, stretch your creativity, and live up to your potential, you are what makes the world great.

Here was something that I did all the time, and thought nothing of it, and it turns out the rest of the world thinks it's completely reprehensible. That's when I knew I needed to change, so I started making rules. The first one was; Don't mess with animals.

We think we're invincible, and then one little crack, and boom, out comes more blood and guts and screams than you'd ever thought could be inside a single body. And when that blood goes, everything else goes with it - breath, thought, movement. Existence. One minute you're alive and then suddenly you're not.

I had called Brooke 'it'. That was stupid. That was ... horrifying. I was better than that ...
... Calling human beings 'it' was a common trait of a serial killer - they didn't think of other people as human, only as objects, because that made them easier to torture and kill. It was hard to hurt 'him' or 'her', but easy to hurt 'it'. 'It' didn't have any feelings. 'It' didn't have any rights. 'It' was just a thing, and you could do whatever you wanted with it.

She looked at Woolf. "There's some kind of ... thing."
"That sentence wasn't as helpful as you probably intended it to be," said Marcus.

Happiness is the most natural thing in the world when you have it, and the slowest, strangest, most impossible thing when you don't. It's like learning a foreign language: You can think about the words all you want, but you'll never be able to speak it until you suck up your courage and say them out loud.

Kira liked it, in a way. Nobody told nature what to do.