Dan Wells Quotes

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. ~ Dan Wells

Even a paranoid clock is being followed twice a day. ~ Dan Wells

I am stronger than my trials. ~ Dan Wells

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

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

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

What really got to me was not the fact that animal cruelty could predict violent behavior - it's that up until I read about it, I never thought that it was wrong. I was killing animals and taking them apart, and I had all the emotional reaction of a kid playing with Legos. It's like they weren't real to m - they were just toys to play with. Things. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

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

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. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

Mother of mercy,"said Tovar."And that caused the riot?"
"It's the other way around,"said Kira sheepishly."We started the riot as a distraction for the jaibreak."
Tovar whistled."You don't mess aroud."
P303 ~ Dan Wells

I'm the demonslayer. Come and get me. ~ Dan Wells

People are always afraid of other things, they are never afraid of themselves. ~ Dan Wells

Antisocial personality disorder," she said, her voice rising. "I looked it up. It's a psychosis." She turned away. "My son's a psychotic." "APD is primarily defined as a lack of empathy," I said. I'd looked it up, too, a few months ago. Empathy is what allows people to interpret emotion, the same way ears interpret sound; without it you become emotionally deaf. "It means I don't connect emotionally with other people. I wondered if he was going to pick that one. ~ Dan Wells

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 ~ Dan Wells

Nobody told nature what to do. ~ Dan Wells

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

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. ~ Dan Wells

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

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

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. ~ Dan Wells

Feelings aren't good or bad. They're just weak or strong. Love, for example, is weak: someone loves you, you love them back, you're happy for a while, and then it fades away. But if one of those lovers betrays the other, then you have a real emotion - then you have something powerful, something that leaves a mark you'll never be rid of. Betrayal is the most delicious of all, but it takes a while to set it up, and fear can be just as intense if you know what you're doing. ~ Dan Wells

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

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. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

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

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. ~ Dan Wells

For me, embalming was a form of meditation; it brought a sense of peace that I had never found in any other aspect of my life. I loved the stillness of it, the quietness. The bodies never moved or yelled; they never fought or left. The dead simply lay there, at peace with the world, and let me do whatever I needed to do. I was in control of myself. ~ Dan Wells

You'd spend your whole life making two loaves of bread - just two loaves - and they would mean everything to you. All the effort it took to make them, all the time and the struggle and the thinking it would be impossible, watching everyone around you make bread every day all the time like it was nothing, and you just sit by yourself and wonder how any of it can even make sense, thinking maybe they're all just lying to you, like it's some huge joke that the whole world is playing on you, and then one day you finally do it. You make your two loaves. And then... ~ Dan Wells

In coming here, I was digging at the foundations of something larger and deeper, scratching tiny lines in a wall I dare not breach. There was a monster behind that wall, and I had built it strong to keep the monster at bay; now it stirred and stretched, restless in its dreaming. There was a new monster in town, it seemed - would its presence awaken the one I kept hidden? ~ Dan Wells

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

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. ~ Dan Wells

When she fell asleep, she dreamed of death
not just for her, not just for her species, but for every living thing she had ever known. The earth was flat and brown, a field of dirt as barren as the moon, a single road stretching in the distance. the last to fall were the buildings, distant and solemn, the gravestones for an entire world. Then they disappeared, and there was nothing left but nothing. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

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

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. ~ Dan Wells

How many people haven't dies because I killed the Withered that would have killed them? How many people have died because I kicked the hornet's nest and woke the hounds of hell? ~ Dan Wells

I closed my eyes. The monster had named itself now - stolen its name from the Son of Sam, who'd called himself Mr. Monster in a letter to the paper. He'd begged the police to shoot him on sight, so he wouldn't kill again. He couldn't stop himself.
But I could. I am not a serial killer.
I put down the knife. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

My wit is like your legs," said Xochi. " It would be selfish of me to keep it hidden. ~ Dan Wells

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

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. ~ Dan Wells

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

Being partially to blame for your own therapist's death is a tough thing to deal with, especially because you don't have a therapist any more to help you through it. Sometimes irony just kicks you in the teeth like that. ~ Dan Wells

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

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. ~ Dan Wells

The idea that I might be sociopathic was nothing new to me - I'd known for a long time that I didn't connect with other people. I didn't understand them, and they didn't understand me, and whatever emotional language they spoke seemed beyond my capacity to learn. Antisocial personality disorder could not be officially diagnosed until you were eighteen years old - prior to that it was just "conduct disorder." But let's be honest: conduct disorder is just a nice way of telling parents their kids have antisocial personality disorder. I saw no reason to dance around the issue. I was a sociopath, and it was better to deal with it now. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

That chick makes the monsters under my bed have nightmares. ~ Dan Wells

The online world has subsumed the physical one. We live in the future. ~ Dan Wells

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

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. ~ Dan Wells

What did I do that I didn't have to do? That was always the question. Figure out what we choose when we're free to choose anytime and you'll know who we really are. ~ Dan Wells

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

Being really good at something you shouldn't be doing doesn't make it any better," Mom said.
"It's a history class," I said, "and serial killers are a part of history. So are wars and racism and genocide. I guess I forgot to sign up for the 'happy stuff only' history class, sorry about that. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

This dazzling, unput-downable debut novel proves beyond a doubt that Dan Wells has the gift. His teenage protagonist is as chilling as he is endearing. More John Wayne Cleaver, please. ~ F. Paul Wilson

It's like ... time is flowing backward. We're caveman archeologists in the ruins of the future. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

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

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. ~ Dan Wells

Nobody as a destiny. I mean, nobody has some kind of inescapable path for their life. This mug was made from clay, and that clay could have been anything at all until somebody made it into a mug. People aren't mugs, we are clay. Living, breathing, thinking, feeling clay, and we can shape ourselves into anything we want, and we keep shaping ourselves all our lives, getting better and better at whatever we want to be, and when we want to be something else we just smooth out the clay and start over. Your lack of 'purpose' is the single best thing about you, because it means you can be whatever you want. ~ Dan Wells

What I want you to do is think long and hard about this. You made us to kill and conquer, and we are doing it better than you ever anticipated. Far better than you could ever do yourselves. You are no match for us. Do not make us your enemy. Confirm. ~ Dan Wells

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

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

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

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. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

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

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. ~ Dan Wells

Humans were more than capable of murder all on their own. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

Hello, Bradley,' said Mom. She'd regained her composure after my outburst, and now raised her camera. 'Stand close.'
'No, Mom,' I said. 'No pictures.'
'But you're friend's here now,' she said, waving us together. 'Smile!'
'I don't need a picture with-' the flash snapped '-another guy. That's great, Mom, thank you. Send that one to Dad and tell him we're going steady. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

You'll never see us coming. ~ Dan Wells

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

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. ~ Dan Wells

Exposure to nature - cold, heat, water - is the most dehumanizing way to die. Violence is passionate and real - the final moments as you struggle for your life, firing a gun or wrestling a mugger or screaming for help, your heart pumps loudly and your body tingles with energy; you are alert and awake and, for that brief moment, more alive and human than you've ever been before. Not so with nature.
At the mercy of the elements the opposite happens: your body slows, your thoughts grow sluggish, and you realize just how mechanical you really are. Your body is a machine, full of tubes and valves and motors, of electrical signals and hydraulic pumps, and they function properly only within a certain range of conditions. As temperatures drop, your machine breaks down. Cells begin to freeze and shatter; muscles use more energy to do less; blood flows too slowly, and to the wrong places. Your sense fade, your core temperature plummets, and your brain fires random signals that your body is too weak to interpret or follow. In that stat you are no longer a human being, you are a malfunction - an engine without oil, grinding itself to pieces in its last futile effort to complete its last meaningless task. ~ Dan Wells

We were a minor league team that didn't feed into any majors, in a town that loved just about every sport but ours. We were going nowhere and we knew it, so why not have fun? In the forties, when I was playing, we were officially the most violent team in the country, and that means probably the whole world, and by the way, that's why I could skate with no toes. A figure skater, a speed skater, an NHL forward, sure, you need your toes for control, but all that finesse takes a backseat when all you're trying to do is slam somebody into a wall and break all his teeth. ~ Dan Wells

I peered deeper into the mirror, searching. Who was staring back? He looked like me, he talked like me, his body moved when mine did. I swayed to the right, then left, then back to centre; the person in the mirror did the same. This was the thing that terrified me the most – more than the victim, more than the demon, more even than the dark thoughts. It was the fact that the dark thoughts were mine. That I couldn't separate myself from evil, because most of the evil in my life came from inside my own head. ~ Dan Wells

And we're more valuable to you alive," said Marcus.
Delarosa cocked her head to the side. "How?"
"Because, um ... " Marcus grimaced. "I don't actually know, I just assumed because that's what people typically say at this point. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

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

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! ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

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. ~ Dan Wells

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 ~ Dan Wells

If you can't know the truth, said Isolde, live the most awesome lie you can think off. ~ Dan Wells

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

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. ~ Dan Wells

This is the story of the end of the world, the rise and fall of human civilization, the creation of the Partials and the death of everything else. ~ Dan Wells

Listen, John," said Neblin, leaning forward. "You have a lot of predictors for serial-killer behavior, I know - in fact, I think you have more predictors than I've ever seen in one person. But you have to remember that predictors are just that - they predict what might happen, they don't prophesy what will happen. Ninety-five percent of serial killers wet their beds and light fires and hurt animals, but that doesn't mean that ninety-five percent of kids who do those things will become serial killers. You are always in control of your own destiny, and you are always the one who makes your own choices - no one else. The fact that you have those rules, and that you follow them so carefully, says a lot about you and your character. You're a good person, John. ~ Dan Wells