01c. 1962 ADAh. And then you kill him.""No," Arkwright replied patiently. "We are British. We avoid murder if we can help it.{...}Rick Yancey / quote ↗
02c. 1962 ADThe nights did not come gently but seemed to slam down angrily upon the Earth.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
03c. 1962 ADThat's a stupid question,' said Malachi. 'Because he didn't warn him. He didn't warn anyone.''No, it's a philosophical question,' Kearns corrected him. 'Which makes it useless, not stupid.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
04c. 1962 ADIt's been a long time since humans were prey animals. A hundred thousand years or so. But buried deep in our genes the memory remains: the awareness of the gazelle, the instinct of the antelope. The wind whispers through the grass. A shadow flits between the trees. And up speaks the little voice that goes. Shhhh, it's close now. Close.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
05c. 1962 ADI should have bailed. That little voice had my back. That little voice is older than I am. It's older than the oldest person who ever lived. I should have listened to that voice.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
06c. 1962 ADLife is full of little ironies, but it's also pockmarked with some the size of that big rock in Australia.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
07c. 1962 ADHis other hand finds my cheek, and he wipes away my tears with his thumb. The chocolate scent overwhelms me as he bends over and whispers in my ear, “No, Cassie. No, no, no.”I throw my arm around his neck and press his dry cheek against my wet one. I’m shaking like an epileptic, and for the first time I can feel the weight of the quilts on the top of my toes because the blinding dark sharpens your other senses.I’m a bubbling stew of random thoughts and feelings. I’m worried my hair might smell. I want some chocolate. This guy holding me—well, it’s more like I was holding him—has seen me in all my naked glory. What did he think about my body? What did I think about my body? Does God really care about promises? Do I really care about God? Are miracles something like the Red Sea parting or more like Evan Walker finding me locked in a block of ice in a wilderness of white?“Cassie, it’s going to be okay,” he whispers into my ear, chocolate breath.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
09c. 1962 ADSullivan had her Crucifix Soldier and now I have mine. No. I am the soldier. Teacup is the cross.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
11c. 1962 ADMadness is a wholly human malady borne in a brain too evolved—or not quite evolved enough—to bear the awful burden of its own existence.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
12c. 1962 ADEven the most sensitive person can get used to even the most insensitive things.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
14c. 1962 ADSo cold your tears freeze against your cheeks.'It's not my fault,' I told Bear. 'I don't make the weather. You got a beef, take it up with God.' That's what I've been doing a lot lately: taking it up withRick Yancey / quote ↗
15c. 1962 ADIt'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 / quote ↗
16c. 1962 ADI should have asked, I guess,” he says. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”“What?”He rotates around on his butt to face me. Me on the sofa, him on the floor, looking up. “That I was going with you.”“What? We weren’t even talking about that! And why would you want to go with me, Evan? Since you think he’s dead?”“I just don’t want you to be dead, Cassie.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
17c. 1962 ADWe're all dead...Some of us are just a little further along than others.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
18c. 1962 ADCassie?”It’s Sammy, holding on to Ben, because he’s feeling the Ben thing a little more than he is the Cassie one at the moment. Who’s this guy falling from the ductwork, and what’s he doing with my sister?“This must be Sammy,” Evan says.“This is Sammy,” I say. “Oh! And this is—”“Ben Parish,” Ben says.“Ben Parish?” Evan looks at me. That Ben Parish?“Ben,” I say, my face on fire. I want to laugh and crawl under the counter at the same time. “This is Evan Walker.”“Is he your boyfriend?” Sammy asks.I don’t know what to say. Ben looks totally lost, Evan completely amused, and Sammy just damned curious. It’s my first truly awkward moment in the alien lair, and I’d been through my share of moments.“He’s a friend from high school,” I mutter.And Evan corrects me, since it’s clear I’ve lost my mind. “Actually, Sam, Ben is Cassie’s friend from high school.”“She’s not my friend,” Ben says. “I mean, I guess I kind of remember her…” Then Evan’s words sink in. “How do you know who I am?”“He doesn’t!” I fairlyRick Yancey / quote ↗
20c. 1962 ADI would just have to find a hog, slaughter it, butcher it, cure the meat, then fry it up. Thinking about the bacon—the potential of bacon—gives me hope. Not all is lost if bacon isn't. Seriously.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
21c. 1962 ADThe beautiful wooden board on a stand in my father’s study. The gleaming ivory pieces. The stern king. The haughty queen. The noble knight. The pious bishop. And the game itself, the way each piece contributed its individual power to the whole. It was simple. It was complex. It was savage; it was elegant. It was a dance; it was a war. It was finite and eternal. It was life.Rick Yancey / quote ↗
22c. 1962 ADIf you leave without me, I’ll just follow you. You can’t stop me, Cassie. How are you going to stop me?”I shrug helplessly, fighting back tears. “Shoot you, I guess.”“Like you shot the Crucifix Soldier?”The words hit me like a bullet between the shoulder blades. I whirl around and fling open the door. He flinches, but stands his ground.“How do you know about him?” Of course, there’s only one way he could know. “You read my diary.”“I didn’t think you were going to live.”“Sorry to disappoint you.”“I guess I wanted to know what happened—”“You’re lucky I left the gun downstairs or I would shoot you right now. Do you know how creepy that makes me feel, knowing you read that? How much did you read?”He lowers his eyes. A warm red blush spreads across his cheeks.“You read all of it, didn’t you?” I’m totally embarrassed. I feel violated and ashamed. It’s ten times worse than when I first woke up in Val’s bed and realized he had seen me naked. That was just my body. This was my soul.I punch him in the stomach. There’s no give at all; it’s like I hit a slab of concrete.“I can’t believe you,” I shout. “You sat there—just sat there—while I lied about Ben Parish. You knew the truth and you just sat there and let me lie!Rick Yancey / quote ↗
23c. 1962 ADPeople change spouses more often than they clean out closets. And every time they say, 'This is the one. This is the person I'm going to spend eternity with.' Then forty or fifty years go by and you're just sick of each other, utterly sick, and it's on to the next 'true love.' My question is what good is eternity if you are eternally falling in and out of love?Rick Yancey / quote ↗
24c. 1962 ADI 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 / quote ↗
