MaddAddam Quotes
78,282 ratings, 4.02 average rating, 6,141 reviews
Open Preview
MaddAddam Quotes
Showing 1-30 of 148
“It had helped to keep her sane, that writing. Then, when time had begun again and real people had entered it, she'd abandoned it here. Now it's a whisper from the past.
Is that what writing amounts to? The voice your ghost would have, if it had a voice?”
― MaddAddam
Is that what writing amounts to? The voice your ghost would have, if it had a voice?”
― MaddAddam
“But hatred and viciousness are addictive. You can get high on them. Once you've had a little, you start shaking if you don't get more.”
― MaddAddam
― MaddAddam
“Why is it always such a surprise? thinks Toby. The moon. Even though we know it's coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush.”
― MaddAddam
― MaddAddam
“People need such stories, because however dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void.”
― MaddAddam
― MaddAddam
“Glenn used to say the reason you can't really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you say, "I'll be dead," you've said the word I, and so you're still alive inside the sentence. And that's how people got the idea of immortality of the soul - it was a consequence of grammar. And so was God, because as soon as there's a past tense, there has to be a past before the past, and you keep going back in time until you get to I don't know, and that's what God is. It's what you don't know - the dark, the hidden, the underside of the visible, and all because we have grammar ...”
― MaddAddam
― MaddAddam
“Why is war so much like a practical joke? she thinks. Hiding behind bushes, leaping out, with not much difference between Boo! and Bang! except the blood.”
― MaddAddam
― MaddAddam
“She is about to add, "I have scars, inside me," but she stops herself. What is a scar, Oh Toby? That would be the next question. Then she'd have to explain what a scar is. A scar is like writing on your body. It tells about something that once happened to you, such as a cut on your skin where blood came out.”
― MaddAddam
― MaddAddam
“Had she believed all that? Old Pilar's folklore? No, not really; or not exactly. Most likely Pilar hadn't quite believed it either, but it was a reassuring story: that the dead were not entirely dead but were alive in a different way; a paler way admittedly, and somewhat darker. But still able to send messages, if only such messages could be recognized and deciphered. People need such stories, Pilar said once, because however dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void.”
― MaddAddam
― MaddAddam
“I remember adapt,” says Toby. “It was another way of saying tough luck. To people you weren’t going to help out.”
― MaddAddam
― MaddAddam
“The moon. Even though we know it’s coming. Every time we see it, it makes us pause, and hush.”
― MaddAddam
― MaddAddam
“I already told you,” said Adam. “There is no need to swear.”
“Sorry, it just fucking slipped out,” said Zeb.”
― MaddAddam
“Sorry, it just fucking slipped out,” said Zeb.”
― MaddAddam
“He was twisted as a pretzel, he was a tinfoil-halo shitnosed frogstomping king rat asshole, but he wasn't stupid.”
― MaddAddam
― MaddAddam
“But I have already told the beginning, so right now it's the middle. And Zeb is in the middle of the story about Zeb. He is in the middle of his own story.
I am not in this part of the story; it hasn't come to the part with me. But I'm waiting, far off in the future. I'm waiting for the story of Zeb to join up with mine. The story of Toby. The story I am in right now, with you.”
― MaddAddam
I am not in this part of the story; it hasn't come to the part with me. But I'm waiting, far off in the future. I'm waiting for the story of Zeb to join up with mine. The story of Toby. The story I am in right now, with you.”
― MaddAddam
“He would have died soon, but more painfully. Anyway, it was Urban Bloodshed Limitation. First rule: limit bloodshed by making sure that none of your own gets spilled.”
― MaddAddam
― MaddAddam
“When you focus on details like this - close up, really clear, totally useless - you know you're in shock”
― MaddAddam
― MaddAddam
“Would I laugh?"
"Matter of fact, you would," says Zeb. "Heart like shale. What you need is a good fracking.”
― MaddAddam
"Matter of fact, you would," says Zeb. "Heart like shale. What you need is a good fracking.”
― MaddAddam
“And I said that Crozier did not need to call Fuck right now because we were not in trouble and did not need his help. And Toby said, That's right, he doesn't like to be summoned on trivial matters. And Zeb coughed.”
― MaddAddam
― MaddAddam
“This is how it starts, among the closed circles of the marooned, the shipwrecked, the besieged: jealousy, dissention, a breach in the groupthink walls. Then the entry of the foe, the murderer, the shadow slipping in through the door we forgot to lock because we were distracted by our darker selves: nursing our minor hatreds, indulging our petty resentments, yelling at one another, tossing the crockery.”
― MaddAddam
― MaddAddam
“The people in the chaos cannot learn. They cannot understand what they are doing to the sea and the sky and the plants and the animals. They cannot understand that they are killing them, and that they will end by killing themselves. And there are so many of them, and each one of them is doing part of the killing, whether they know it or not. And when”
― MaddAddam
― MaddAddam
“So that made me happy but the part that really made me happy was that you wanted me to be happy. That's what Thank you means.”
― MaddAddam
― MaddAddam
“The possibility of injury or death was a strong attraction: as the online world became more and more pre-edited and slicked up, and as even its so-called reality sites raised questions about authenticity in the minds of the viewers, the rough, unpolished physical world was taking on a mystic allure.”
― MaddAddam
― MaddAddam