Rick Yancey Quotes

He leans forward and kisses me hard on the mouth.
"Don't ever do that again," I tell him.
"Why? Because you liked it or because you didn't?"
"Both. ~ Rick Yancey

Still I considered the M16 my bestest of besties. Always by my side, even at night, burrowed into my sleeping bag with me, faithful and true. In the 4th Wave, you can't trust that people are still people. But you can trust that your gun is still your gun.
Shhh, Cassie. It's close.
Close ~ Rick Yancey

On the porch, the sarge is having a heated debate with her second-in-command. The topic's no mystery; you can hear them clearly through the open door. They've completed the mission, the 2IC argues, time to off these bastards and return to base. "Capture and contain," the sarge shoots back. "My orders don't say nothing about offing anybody." She's wavering, though; you can hear it in her voice. her 2IC comes back with my point about the bomb-shitting beast in high orbit: Whatever she decides about the Dorothys, they have to return to base before dawn or enjoy a front-row seat to Armageddon. ~ Rick Yancey

His were the eyes of one who had seen too much suffering to take suffering too seriously. ~ Rick Yancey

Beyond their immaculate design, the reason sharks rule the ocean is their complete indifference to everything except feeding, procreation, and defending their territory. The shark does not love. It feels no empathy. It trusts nothing. It lives in perfect harmony with its environment because it has no aspirations or desires. And no pity. A shark feels no sorrow, no remorse, hopes for nothing, dreams of nothing, has no illusions about itself or anything beyond itself. ~ Rick Yancey

But monsters, I now know, come in all shapes and sizes, and only their appetite for human flesh defines them. ~ Rick Yancey

Don't just die then, die trying. ~ Rick Yancey

Sometimes in my tent, late at night, I think I can hear the stars scraping against the sky. ~ Rick Yancey

It would make this a perfectly normal alien invasion. ~ Rick Yancey

I couldn't decide who was more annoying, the fanatic or the cynic. ~ Rick Yancey

I see the world through a diaphanous curtain of blood. ~ Rick Yancey

You could see the smile coming a year before it arrived. ~ Rick Yancey

The first rule: Trust no one. Which leads to the second rule: The only way to stay alive as long as possible is to stay alone as long as possible. Now I've broken both. ~ Rick Yancey

A healthy sense of the ironic is the best way to remain sane in a world that often isn't; I highly recommend it. ~ Rick Yancey

You can't band together to fight without trust. And without trust, there was no hope. ~ Rick Yancey

Half the world prays they will be given what they deserve, and the other half that they will not. ~ Rick Yancey

You know how sometimes you tell yourself that you have a choice, but really you don't have a choice? Just because there are alternatives doesn't mean they apply to you. ~ Rick Yancey

It took a second for me to understand what he meant. Then another to get that he was serious. A third second to do something about the first two seconds, which was to sit down. ~ Rick Yancey

There's nothing left to say. There's a million things left to say. ~ Rick Yancey

It's like a cockroach working up a plan to defeat the shoe on its way down to crush it. ~ Rick Yancey

If you wanted to separate humans from their humanity...killing laughter would be a good place to start. ~ Rick Yancey

In her dream, a large owl perches outside the window, staring at her through the glass with huge, white-rimmed eyes. ~ Rick Yancey

For a being more advanced than I am, he sure has a hard time answering a simple question ~ Rick Yancey

There is no loneliness more profound, in my experience, than being ignored by one's sole companion in life. ~ Rick Yancey

What doesn't kill us sharpens us. Hardens us. Schools us. You're beating plowshares into swords, Vosch. You are remaking us. We are the clay, and you are Michelangelo. And we will be your masterpiece. ~ Rick Yancey

I knew it to the bottom of my soul: You're going to die. This wasn't about survival. It was about payback. ~ Rick Yancey

Number forty-nine has been mapped. ~ Rick Yancey

The first kill would be the hardest, but the next would be easier, and the one after that easier still, because it's true: Even the most sensitive person can get used to even the most insensitive thing.
Cruelty isn't a personality trait. Cruelty is a habit.
He pushed that thought away. To call what he was doing cruel implied he had a choice. Choosing between your kind and another species wasn't cruel. It was necessary. Not easy, especially when you've lived the last four years of your life pretending to be no different from them, but necessary. ~ Rick Yancey

We've been reminded who we are
not much
and what we were
too many. ~ Rick Yancey

Coexistence." Talking to me, but addressing the stars above us. "There aren't that many of us, Cassie. Only a few hundred thousand. We could have inserted ourselves in you, lived out our new lives without anyone ever knowing we were here. Not many of my people agreed with me. They saw pretending to be human as beneath them. They were afraid the longer we pretended to be human, the more human we would become. ~ Rick Yancey

Pain is necessary. Pain is life. Without pain there can be no joy. ~ Rick Yancey

In the 4th Wave, you can't trust that people are still people. But you can trust that your gun is still your gun. ~ Rick Yancey

Have you fallen in love, Will Henry?"
"That's stupid."
"What is? Love, or my question?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know? You've tried that trick once. What do you suppose it will work better the second time?"
"I don't love her. She bothers me."
"You have just defined the very thing you denied. ~ Rick Yancey

I might have some issues with fear. ~ Rick Yancey

There is beauty that soothes like the warm kiss of the spring sun upon the cheek, and then there is beauty that terrifies, like the cry of Ozymandias, inviting despair. ~ Rick Yancey

If I had faced it then, I wouldn't be facing it now, but sooner or later you have to choose between running and facing the thing you thought you could not face. ~ Rick Yancey

That's my big problem. That's it! Before the Arrival,guys like Evan Walker never looked twice at me, much less shot wild game for me and washed my hair. They never grabbed me by the back of the neck like the airbrushed model on his mother's paperback,abs a-clenching, pecs a-popping. My eyes have never been looked into, or my chin raised to bring my lips within an inch of theirs. I was the girl in the background, the just-friend,or -worse- the friend of a just-friend, the you-sit-next-to-her-in-geometry-but-can't-remember-her-name girl. ~ Rick Yancey

He spreads his fingers over my heart, like he's holding it, like it belongs to him, the hard-fought-for territory he's won fair and square. ~ Rick Yancey

But we'll get up, and go through hell again. Because we will die, but we'll die unbroken. ~ Rick Yancey

What is it? I remembered thinking in panic. What is it? Why did I want to follow this man? What was it about the monstrumologist that consumed me? What demon of the pit chewed and gnawed upon my soul like Judas' in the innermost circle of hell? What did it look like? What was its face? If I could name the nameless thing, if I could put a face upon the faceless thing, perhaps I could free myself from its ravenous embrace. ~ Rick Yancey

There's no bottom to this crap. The more you dig, the further down it goes. ~ Rick Yancey

This is the first rule of the last war:Trust No One ~ Rick Yancey

Okay, don't just die, then. Die trying. ~ Rick Yancey

I walked until the water lapped against my chest, and then I kept walking until it kissed the underside of my jaw. I was surprised how cold it was. I closed my eyes and ducked beneath the surface. Thee was the wind and the clouds and the pure pool and the boy beneath its unsettled surface, and the blood, the boy's and monster's, defiling the pool. ~ Rick Yancey

Promises are the only currency left. They must be spent wisely. ~ Rick Yancey

Somentimes you're in the wrong place at the wrong time and what happens is nobody's fault.You just want to feel bad so you'll feel better. ~ Rick Yancey

Like any omnipresent smell - or rather, like anything omnipresent - you get used to it; you stop smelling it after a while. Same is true for your other senses. And your soul. ~ Rick Yancey

And in more than half the pictures, she isn't looking at the camera; she's looking at him. Not the way I would look at Ben Parish, all squishy around the eyes. She looks at Evan fiercely, like, This here? It's mine ~ Rick Yancey

I brought Sammy inside and put him to bed. Said his prayer with him. "'Now I lay me down to sleep…'" To me, just random noise. Gibberish. I wasn't sure exactly what it was, but I felt that, when it came to God, there was a broken promise in there somewhere. ~ Rick Yancey

He barely knew I existed. I knew some of the same people he knew, but I was a girl in the background, several degrees of seperation removed. ~ Rick Yancey

The question haunts me still, and will, I suppose, until I join my parents in our final reunion. If the doctor had known what horrors awaited us not only at the cemetery that night, but in the days to come, would he still have insisted upon my company? Would he still have demanded that a mere child dive so deep into the well of human suffering and sacrifice - a literal sea of blood? And if the answer to that question is yes, then there are more terrifying monstrosities in the world than Anthropophagi. Monstrosities who, with a smile and a comforting pat on the head, are willing to sacrifice a child upon the altar of their own overweening ambition and pride. ~ Rick Yancey

Those few seconds when you're awake but empty. You forget where you are. What you are now, what you were before. It's all breath and heartbeat and blood moving. Like being in your mother's womb again. The peace of the void. ~ Rick Yancey

I was woefully ignorant in the social graces. I was being raised, after all, by Pellinore Warthrop. ~ Rick Yancey

Whoever's not with us is against us. That kind of thinking nearly brought an end to history, more than once. This ~ Rick Yancey

Tampons. I'm constantly worrying about my stash and if I'll be able to find more. ~ Rick Yancey

Back around the counter to fetch my rifle. Rifle, sidearm, knife, a couple of flash grenades. And one more thing, the most essential weapon in my arsenal: a heart full of rage. ~ Rick Yancey

No hope without faith, no faith without hope, no love without trust, no trust without love. Remove one and the entire human house cards collapses. ~ Rick Yancey

Sullivan had her Crucifix Soldier and now I have mine. No. I am the soldier. Teacup is the cross. ~ Rick Yancey

Wait a minute," he says, holding up one of his large handa. "A green bomb?"
"I'm not making this up."
"Why green, though?"
"Because green is the color of money, grass, oak leaves, and alien bombs. How the hell would I know why it was green? ~ Rick Yancey

It only takes one. Just one, and the world changes. ~ Rick Yancey

The match was over before it began. When the game is fixed, how do you avoid losing? ~ Rick Yancey

They made a major mistake," he blurted out, "the dumb bastards, when they didn't start by killing you first."
"Benjamin Thomas Parish, that was the sweetest and most bizarre compliment anyone's ever given me."
I kissed him on the cheek. He kissed me on the mouth.
"You know," I whispered, "a year ago, I would have sold my soul for that."
He shook his head. "Not worth it." And, for one-ten thousandth of a second, all of it fell away, the despair and grief and anger and pain and hunger, and the old Ben Parish rose from the dead. The eyes that impaled. The smile that slayed. In another moment, he would fade, slide back into the new Ben, the one called Zombie, and I understood something I hadn't before: He was dead, the object of my schoolgirl desires, just as the schoolgirl who desired him was dead. ~ Rick Yancey

It isn't that the lies are too beautiful to resist. It's that the truth is too hideous to face. ~ Rick Yancey

Zombie!" Sammy calls. "I knew it was you."
Zombie?
"Where are you taking him?" Ben says to me in a deep voice. I don't remember it being that deep. Is my memory bad or is he lowering it on purpose, to sound older?
"Zombie, that's Cassie," Sam chides him. "You know - Cassie."
"Cassie?" Like he's never heard the name before.
"Zombie?" I say, because I really haven't heard that name before.
I pull off the cap, thinking it might help him recognize me, then immediately regret it. I know what my hair must look like.
"We go to the same high school," I say, drawing my fingers hastily through my chopped-off locks. "I sit in front of you in Honors Chemistry."
Ben shakes his head like he's clearing out the cobwebs.
Sammy goes, "I told you she was coming."
"Quiet, Sam," I scold him.
"Sam?" Ben asks.
"My name is Nugget now, Cassie," Sam informs me.
"Well, sure it is." I turn to Ben. "You know my brother. ~ Rick Yancey

Do you know why they [demons] hate us so much, Alfred? Because of hope.

They have none, and so they hate us for it. ~ Rick Yancey

This place can't be heaven, it doesn't have the right vibe. ~ Rick Yancey

Her raised his face to the weeping sky, closed his dark eyes, and sighed deeply, a smile playing on his sensuous lips. The bloody hour is come. ~ Rick Yancey

It's almost dawn. You can feel it coming. The world holds its breath, because there's really no guarantee that the sun will rise. That there was a yesterday doesn't mean there will be a tomorrow. ~ Rick Yancey

Daddy said the world was dividing into two camps: runners and nesters. ~ Rick Yancey

Cruelty isn't a personality trait. Cruelty is a habit. ~ Rick Yancey

For some, death is the midwife to faith. For others, it is faith's executioner. ~ Rick Yancey

Humans are social animals. They cluster like bees. ~ Rick Yancey

We stared into the eyes of death and death blinked first. Youd think that would make us feel invincible. It didnt ~ Rick Yancey

The way we learn to write is the way we learn to talk: We listen to others and start mimicking speech, and that's how we come to become speakers. Writers you admire, you admire the way they plot, you admire the way they create a character, you admire the way they put a sentence together, those are the writers you should be reading. ~ Rick Yancey

I prefer not to call them demons. It demeans their nature.
"But isn't that what they are?"
"We should pity them more than fear them Alfred. They were angels once."
"Yea, but didn't you say they rebelled against God? They got what they deserved."
"Perhaps." He sighed. "Yet do we not all hope and pray that we ourselves escape that we truly deserve? None have fallen as far or as irrevocably as the outcasts of heaven. Did you not find them beautiful." " ... They have gazed upon the very face of God, the face they will see no more for all eternity-and so I pity them. Even as I envy them for having seen it. ~ Rick Yancey

It's about being hardcore. Because this is the last war, and only the hardcore will survive it. ~ Rick Yancey

Because promises matter. They matter now more than ever. ~ Rick Yancey

I looked past him, to the sea framed in the arched opening of the wall, to the line formed where the water met the sky. The world was not round, I realized. The world was a plate.
'Please,' he whispered. 'Don't.'
Unlike Rurick, Plesec did not die confused. ~ Rick Yancey

He's entitled to his opinion, but that's all it is. An opinion. ~ Rick Yancey

You can't make yourself believe anything," he answers softly. "But you can let yourself believe. You can allow yourself to trust. ~ Rick Yancey

How much farther?" Sammy asks. It will be dark soon, and the dark is the worst time. Nobody told him, but he just knows that when they finally cone it will be in the dark and it will be without warning, like the other waves, and there will be nothing you can do about it, it will just happen, like the TV winking out and the cars dying and the planes falling and mommy wrapped up in bloody sheets.
When the others first came, his father told him the world had changed and nothing would be like before, and maybe they'd take him inside the mothership, maybe even take him on adventures in outer space. And Sammy couldn't wait to go inside the mothership and blast off into space just like Luke Skywalker in his X-Wing starfighter. It made every night feel like Christmas Eve. When morning came, he thought he would wake up to all the wonderful presents the Others brought would be there.
But all the Others brought was death. ~ Rick Yancey

Adolphus is not at his desk. That means he is somewhere in the Monstrumarium, has gone home for the day, or is dead. ~ Rick Yancey

Cassie is Nugget's silver locket. ~ Rick Yancey

Some things you can never leave behind. They don't belong to the past. They belong to you. ~ Rick Yancey

It wasn't a good fake smile. You could always tell when she was faking, because she didn't look friendly; she looked like she was going to throw up. ~ Rick Yancey

I can't leave him. I made a promise." I start to explain it, but I don't even know how to begin. How do I put it into words? It isn't possible. It's like locating the starting point of a circle. Or finding the first link in a silver chain. "I ran one time," I finally say. "I'm not running again. ~ Rick Yancey

To show mercy is not naïve. To hold out against the end of hope is not stupidity or madness. It is fundamentally human. Of course... We are all doomed; we are all poisoned from our birth by the rot of stars. That does not mean we should succumb...to the seductive fallacy of despair, the dark tide that would drown us. You may think I'm stupid, you may call me a madman and a fool, but at least I stand upright in a fallen world. ~ Rick Yancey

Tears welled in his eyes. It was like watching chocolate melt. ~ Rick Yancey

He would bear any burden, endure any hardship, suffer any torment if that suffering added a single moment to her life. ~ Rick Yancey

By killing us, they showed us the idiocy of stuff. The guy who owned this BMW? He's in the same place as the woman who owned that Kia. ~ Rick Yancey

It's an either/or world now. ~ Rick Yancey

We bear the unbearable. We endure the unendurable. We do what must be done until we ourselves are undone. ~ Rick Yancey

Do you know how to tell who the enemy is, Cassie? ~ Rick Yancey

The next thing you do when the plug's pulled, after panicking, is run to the nearest window. You don't know why exactly. It's that better-see-what's-going-on feeling. The world works from the outside in. So if the lights go off, you look outside. ~ Rick Yancey

Who needs a 12th System when you have a heart like Cassie Sullivans's? ~ Rick Yancey

What were they thinking? 'It's an alien apocalypse! Quick, grab the beer! ~ Rick Yancey

I really kill myself on titles, although 'The 5th Wave' seems like an obvious title, doesn't it? You don't know how long that took me. ~ Rick Yancey

The nights did not come gently but seemed to slam down angrily upon the Earth. ~ Rick Yancey

I have a very low tolerance for boredom and often think I would have missed out on books entirely if I'd grown up in the Internet and video game age. Now I enjoy books for people of all ages, including children. ~ Rick Yancey

Private Zombie, you are a disgrace to the species. I've hacked up lugies tougher than you. You make me think the enemy was right about the human race. You should be ground up for slop and passed out a hog's shithole! Well, what are you waiting for, you stinking bag of regurgitated puke, an effing invitation? ~ Rick Yancey