Quotes from Chuck Wendig

Stories drag you through the mud of multiple emotions and through the thorn-tangle of thinky thoughts.

HUMANKIND HAS CHANGED THE CLIMATE. THE PERMAFROST IS MELTING. GROUND THAT HAS BEEN FROZEN FOR TEN THOUSAND YEARS CONTAINS MICROBES THAT HAVE NOT BEEN SEEN SINCE THE LAST ICE AGE. THE SOIL THAWS. ANIMALS MOVE THROUGH THAT SOIL. BROWN BEARS, FOR INSTANCE, BECOME CARRIERS FOR SUCH MICROBES AND ARE FORCED FARTHER SOUTH DUE TO THAT MELTING PERMAFROST, AND AS A RESULT END UP SEEKING NEW HIBERNACULA: THEY MOVE TO CAVES THAT ARE ALSO HOME TO OTHER ANIMALS. ANIMALS SUCH AS THE NORTHERN MYOTIS BAT.

Between them an image is projected: a single, winking cursor. It wants a code. It wants the code.

Happiness is active, not passive; it's a decision, not an award someone gives you. Happiness takes adjustment. When something is broken, you adjust that thing with a wrench, a screwdriver, maybe a flamethrower.

Culture was culture, and money was money.

But now it's like I'm not really here. I'm just a witness, wayward and alone.

the sound of it nearly lost to the zipper-unzipping buzz of the cicadas.

No, no, I know, it's just—you know, I thought . . ." "Because I have Syrian heritage I hate the Jews?" "When you put it like that, I'm pretty sure I'm a dumb-ass.

I'm just saying, nobody does anything. And the shootings keep coming. Malls, movie theaters, churches, synagogues, fuckin' everywhere. If the needle didn't move for a bunch of dead elementary schoolkids, it's never gonna move.

For him, libraries served as that escape: They were routinely calm, if not always quiet, and of course they surrounded him with books. Sweet, sweet books. Each book, a treasure chest of knowledge.

The tunnel became the place of dares:Kids said that if you walked the tunnel at midnight, you might hear a train whistle, and if you didn't run the half-mile length of darkness at top speed, the conductor would ride along in his ghost train and- Choo-choo, chopity-chop. Cut your head off too.

That was key, he long felt, to an informed society, one that cleaved to both empathy and critical thinking: access to information.

Shooting yourself in the leg is healthier than in the heart, too. Doesn't mean I would recommend doing it.

The church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes a sheriff, or a thief despises the prosecuting witness.

He knows how war goes. It's not many wars, but just one, drawn out again and again, cut up into slices so it seems more manageable.

Maybe it's from the Greek word for "apocalypse"—apokálypsis. An uncovering. A revealing.

Mood is painted in the margins: you create the image by negative space, dancing around it without ever saying it. 9.

awakening. Listen, it's like the Death card in the Tarot. Movies always make it seem like the Death card is a bad thing—a literal death—but no, it's a metaphorical death, a figurative one, and that means transformation, transition, and maybe that's where we are now, as people, as humans.

An apology with the heft of a prayer, if not the faith behind it.

Again, Benji was reminded of the girl's absurd bravery. She had nothing to gain here. The man, Clade Berman, was nowhere near her own sister. He presented no danger to anyone but his own family. That marked her as someone who had a lot of untapped courage - there was that word again, echoing the conversation with Arav - or someone who cared little for herself or her own life. (He wondered idly, How often do those two things intertwine?)

the kind of energy that could power a mountain village for the better part of a year, the kind of energy that reminded them both that their love was vigorous and eternal, lust-slick and heart-strong, as bright as starlight, as loud as thunder, and dirtier than a gas station bathroom.

ROGER-ROGER. NONE SHALL HARM HER OR THEY WILL BE CONVERTED TO A PLEASING BLOOD MIST.

The shelves had been stripped bare and battered to Hell, as if some super-important Christmas toy release had come and gone and an army of Super-Moms had ripped through the store, buying everything up like an all-consuming void. Didn't hurt that many of the shelves were lined with piles of bones both animal and human.

And oh, could he smell them. It wasn't just the stench of body sweat. It was the rancid odor of human meat. With every breath they gave it off. Blood under their tongue. Long pork between their teeth. Eau de cannibal.