Josh Malerman Quotes

What happens, Warren wondered (and wrote it, too, wrote the thought into the one book, not the other) when a man feels so much guilt that he must perfom self-surgery, must remove it from his body? and what does that man do with it once it's gone? And what does he do with the empty space?

I am Rot, James Moxie. I am the moment after you've decided to leave the one you love.

And the only thing worse than receiving all your information from one source is believing it entirely.

She breathes deep and looks at Rick for the first time with hope ... It's as if this is the first time the question has ever mattered to Malorie. Suddenly there is room in her life for such luxuries as names.

She remembers yelling, so much yelling, so much saying 'no no no, Tom, NO!'

But if you tell someone "no" enough times, they start thinking "yes", just to hear something else, just to hear a different word, they start thinking YES.

There are five thousand species of insect and animal who are hidden, watching us, listening to us right now. And we figured out how to blend in with the trees. Is that our big achievement, Private Tonka? We're finally as smart as the bugs?

Yet, there was nothing. No images, no stories, no rumors. And with every dead-end she met, she experienced a little relief. If nobody else had a story about the house … didn't that mean that, in a way, it still belonged to Amelia and James? And if they never talked about it with anybody else, if they forever kept their secret, wouldn't it always remain theirs and theirs alone?

In my imagination, the Editor meditated in a mountain-cave, espoused the rules of grammar, and frowned upon speculative fiction.

We left because some people choose to wait for news and others make their own.

Only a box of birds, Malorie thinks. Yet, it does feel like progress.

The monster, Carol thought, looks different when nobody's watching.

Guilt cannot be overcome, only endured.

How far can a person hear?
Malorie needs the children to hear into the trees, into the wind, into the dirt banks that lead to an entire world of living creatures. The river is an amphitheater, Malorie muses, paddling.
But it's also a grave.
The children must listen.
Malorie cannot stave off the visions of hands emerging from the darkness, clutching the heads of the children, deliberately untying that which protects them.
Breathing hard and sweating, Malorie prays a person can hear all the way to safety.

As long as nobody knew what it was, nobody could take it from her.

believe that it's better to face madness with a plan than to sit still and let it take you in pieces. The

War is embarrassing, Mom would say. And none of this fighting will mean anything in ten years. Of course she was both right and wrong about that. Twelve years removed from the war, it did feel a lot less important. And yet . . . the world had changed. In many ways for the better. And if Ross were given the chance to contribute like that again . . . . . . shouldn't he?

Your baby is smarter than you think.

MAN IS THE CREATURE HE FEARS.

Don't dream of anything too horrible," she says. "And if you do, just add a naked woman on roller skates. That always puts an end to a bad dream.

A grisly story, but one whose notoriety Malorie attributes to the seemingly senseless way the Internet has of making random occurrences famous.

You can smell it, too. Death. Dying. Decay. The sky is falling, the sky is dying, the sky is dead.

She'd heard of people, adults usually, intentionally turning a good thing into a bad thing. When things were going good, adults liked to ruin them. Her own mom called it a 'self-fulfilling prophecy.' And you did it to prove to yourself that it wasn't so good to begin with.

One day, the pain your mother and the pain every mother speaks of will come to you in the same form: childbirth. Only a women can experience it and because of this all women are bonded.

dedication Sometimes I wish I were an architect, so that I could dedicate a building to a person; a superstructure that broke the clouds and continued up into the abyss. And if Bird Box were made of bricks instead of letters, I'd host a ceremony, invite every shadowy memory I have, and cut the ribbon with an axe, letting everyone see for the first time that building's name. It'd be called the Debbie. Mom, Bird Box is for you.

This,' Malorie says, placing a bloodied hand on the Girl's head, 'this is Olympia.' The Girl looks at Malorie quickly. She blushes. She smiles. She likes it. 'And this,' Malorie says, pressing the Boy to her body, 'is Tom.' He grins, shy and happy.

It all kind of happened in a row, each step allowed the next step to happen. All because we weren't stagnant.

Creatures...infinity...our minds have ceilings, Malorie...these things...they are beyond it...higher than it...out of reach...out of -

Sometimes things just got too complicated. Something unwanted was added to something wanted and blew the whole thing apart.

Can a man set right his past? With these questions came the possible futility of the ride and the hopelessness of absolution. The guilt was unbearable.

It's better to face madness with a plan than to sit still and let it take you in pieces.

Maybe it's because people can't see the end that they agree to begin.

They are monsters, Malorie thinks. But she knows they are more than this. They are infinity.

Creatures, Malorie thinks. What a cheap word.

Knowing that sometimes the pride one takes in one's work is better for the job than any pace or progress can ever be.

Don't get killed," Marla says. "I won't." "Oh yeah?" "That's not my story. Not how my story is gonna end." "That's just about the most naïve thing I've ever heard you say. You think anybody thinks their story is gonna end the way it does?

Drunk or not, I saw the face of Guilt out there! And I saw the rage it takes to atone for it!

And what scares you more? The creatures or yourself, as the memories of a million sights and colors come flooding towards you?