Quotes from Dave Eggers

He had made a series of foolish decisions in his life. He had not planned well. He had not had courage when he needed it. His decisions had been short sighted. The decisions of his peers had been short sighted. These decisions had been foolish and expedient.

But the tools you guys create actually manufacture unnaturally extreme social needs.

Maybe if he was the sort of man who could eat someone else's hash browns, who the hotel wanted to impress so much they sent him someone else's breakfast, maybe then he was the sort of man who could get an audience with the King.

The heat was alive, predatory.

There were people in the world for whom the world and its people were subjects on which to cast spells.

But everyone disappears, no matter who loves them

I will reach upward. I will attempt to do better. I will not be a burden upon those who have helped me too much already. I will always be grateful for what pleasures I have enjoyed, what joys I have yet to experience. I will take opportunities as they come, but at the same time, I will not trust so easily. I will look at who is at the door before opening it. I will try to be fierce. I will argue when necessary. I will be willing to fight.

If you don't have something grand for men like us to be part of, we will take apart all the little things. Neighbourhood by neighbourhood. Building by building. Family by family.

Infocommunism.

But it felt good to cry, to let her shoulders shake, to feel the hot tears on her face, to taste their baby salt, to wipe snot all over the underside of her shirt.

This had happened to him before - in an effort to disappear, he had made himself more conspicuous.

Did you ever think that perhaps our minds are delicately calibrated between the known and the unknown? That our souls need the mysteries of night and the clarity of day?

Alan was feeling strong. He did two push-ups and felt stronger still.

Be Strong, Be brave, Be True. Endure

Oscar Wilde wrote, Good artists exist in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascination... [they] live the poetry [they] cannot write.

Why would you need a ship, Max? You're thinking of leaving already? No, no, Max said. This would be just for fun. Or emergencies. Carol's face had darkened and his eyes had gone small. His expression scattered Max's brain so much he started babbling: It'll have a trampoline. And a big aquarium. An aquarium under the water, inside the ship, where we keep the fish and squids and stuff we like...

We were entwined so tightly that I was afraid to breathe, lest she move at all.

People worried about our passing over into some robotic state, but we were so much like robots already, programmed and easy to manipulate.

The question, from pundits and constituents, was obvious and loud: If you aren't transparent, what are you hiding? Though some citizens and commentators objected on grounds of privacy, asserting that government, at virtually every level, had always needed to do some things in private for the sake of security and efficiency, the momentum crushed all such arguments and the progression continued. If you weren't operating in the light of day, what were you doing in the shadows?

So many people who wanted no part of all this. That's what's new. There used to be the option of opting out. But now that's over. Completion is the end. We're closing the circle around everyone—it's a totalitarian nightmare.

Revelation is everything, not for its own sake, because most self-revelation is just garbage—oop!—yes, but we have to purge the garbage, toss it out, throw it into a bunker and burn it, because it is fuel.

There are times when I am concerned about Toph's expression when I'm really singing, with vibrato and all, singing the guitar parts and everything—an expression that to the untrained eye might look like abject terror, or revulsion—but I know well enough that it is awe.

Public-private leads to private-private, and soon you have the Circle running most or even all government services

He had had a dream, and dreams are heavy things, requiring constant care and pruning.