Rick Yancey

“But if I'm it, the last of my kind, the last page of human history, like hell I'm going to let the story end this way. I may be the last one, but I am the one still standing. I am the one turning to face the faceless hunter in the woods on an abandoned highway. I am the one not running but facing. Because if I am the last one, then I am humanity. And if this is humanity's last war, then I am the battlefield.”

“Tampons. I’m constantly worrying about my stash and if I’ll be able to find more.”

“We are slaves, all of us...Some are slaves to fear. Others are slaves to reason—or base desire. It is our lot to be slaves...and the question must be to what shall we owe our indenture? Will it be to truth or to falsehood, hope or despair, light or darkness? I choose to serve the light, even though that bondage often lies in darkness.”

“You can only call someone crazy if there’s someone else who’s normal. Like good and evil. If everything was good, then nothing would be good.”

“Some things you can never leave behind. They don't belong to the past. They belong to you.”

“It isn't up to me to break his heart; that's time's job.”

“It's an either/or world now.”

“That's what you do when the curtain is falling--you give the line that the audience wants to hear.”

“Nothing makes us love something more than the loss of it.”

“His were the eyes of one who had seen too much suffering to take suffering too seriously.”

“I was woefully ignorant in the social graces. I was being raised, after all, by Pellinore Warthrop.”

“The cold stars spun to the ancient rhythm, the august march of an everlasting symphony. They are old, the stars, and their memory is long.”

“There are things that are too terrible to remember, and there are things that are almost too wonderful to recall.”

“The doctor frowned upon drinking and often expressed wonderment at men who willingly made imbeciles of themselves.”

“England is home to one of the most unattractive people on earth!" He glared at Walker. "You are the perfect example.”

“Just because a man is a homicidal maniac doesn't make him wrong.”

“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.”

“A miscalculation is not negligence, nor prudence a crime. I am a scientist. I base my action or inaction upon probability and evidence. There is a reason we call science a discipline! Inferior minds bolt or build pyres to roast the witches in their midst!”

“Our fathers had bequeathed us nothing but memories. A fire had stripped me of all tangible tokens, save my little hat; Alistair Warthrop had taken most of what had belonged to Pellinore. What remained of them was simply us, and when we departed, so would they. We were the tablets upon which their lives were writ.”

“Poets never die, I thought. They just fail in the end.”

“It would change everything, gentlemen. It would shift the entire balance of power in Europe-maybe the world. Alexander conquered half of it. Think what he would have done with arrows dipped in monster snot!”

“I'd walk right up to him and blow his brains out.”

“Nein, Will Henry, unser Feind ist die Furcht. Blindmachende, verstandtötende Furcht. Furcht zerstört die Wahrheit und vergiftet jede Klarheit, womit sie uns zu falschen Annahmen und irrationalen Schlussfolgerungen führt.”

“In the name of all that is holy, tell me why God felt the need to make a hell. It seems so redundant.”

“Self-pity is egotism undiluted, after all—self-centeredness in its purest form.”

“He lost a finger. A finger! Why, I once had a Sherpa who guided me across the Himalayas with his small intestines hanging out of his gut -- in winter!”

“Miss Marks, you see, makes her living by...entertaining young, and not so young, sailors...or any other members of the armed forced, or civilians, who enjoy...being entertained by ladies who...entertain.”

“That'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.”

“I do not mean to mock or ridicule your life's work, for in one way at least it mimics my own: We have dedicated our lives to the pursuit of phantoms. The difference is the nature of those phantoms. Mine exist between other men's ears; yours live solely between your own.”

“Is it any wonder the power this man held over me - this man who did not run from his demons like most of us do, but embraced them as his own, clutching them to his heart in a choke-hold grip. He did not try to escape them by denying them or drugging them or bargaining with them. He met them where they lived, in the secret place most of us keep hidden. Warthrop was Warthrop down to the marrow of his bones, for his demons defined him; they breathed the breath of life into him; and without them, he would go down, as most of us do, into the purgatorial fog of a life unrealized.”

“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.”

“What of men? I can't think of anything more banal. I have no doubt — no doubt whatsoever — that once it has obtained the means to do so, the species will wipe itself off the face of the earth. There is no mystery to it; it is our nature. Oh, one might delve into the particulars, but really, what can we say about the species that invented murder? What can we say?”

“There are those who labor in the darkness, that the rest of us might live in the light.”

“Please, do not leave me, Will Henry. I would not survive it. You were nearly right. What Mr. Kendall was, I am always on the brink of becoming. And you - I do not pretend to know how or even why - but you pull me back from the precipice. You are the one... You are the one thing that keeps me Human.”

“But hope is no less realistic than despair. It is still our choice whether to live in light or lie down in darkness.”

“Outiko is not hunted; Outiko hunts, the ogimaa had said. You do not call Outiko. Outiko calls you.”

“Our enemy is fear. Blinding, reason-killing fear. Fear consumes the truth and poisons all the evidence, leading us to false assumptions and irrational conclusions.”

“Yes, my dear child, monsters are real. I happen to have one hanging in my basement.”

“Awaale cursed softly, but he was smiling. "I am only saying God might have sent me for the little one--not for you.""That makes more sense," I replied. "I was going to kill her, Awaale. The gun was an inch from her head and I was pulling the trigger...""But you did not.""No. I saw he was feeding, and I panicked.""Ah, you mean you were meant to save him.""I am not meant to save anyone!" I snapped. I was suddenly very angry. "I am here to serve the doctor, who's here to serve... to serve science, and that's all. That's all.""Oh, walaalo." He sighed. "You are more pirate than I ever was.”

“Oculus Dei, the eyes of God.”

“It is a dark and dirty business, Will Henry. And you are well on your way." He patted my knee, not to congratulate, I think, but to console. His tone was sad and bitter. "You are well on your way.”

“I left them there for the flies and the birds and the sun and the wind. In the silence outside the Tour du Silence, I left them. Where the faceless dead faced the sky, I left them there at the center of the world.”

“There is nothing left when you reach the center of everything, just the pit of bones inside the innermost circle.”

“I might have kissed her here," said Pellinore Warthrop to himself--the fugitive, the prisoner. "I do not remember.”

“You are the nest. You are the hatchling. You are the chrysalis. You are the progeny. You are the rot that falls from stars. You may not understand what I mean. You will.”

“A man lies upon the floor, spreads his arms, and transforms himself into a ship of a thousand sails.”

“It's the lady, then," he murmured.”

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

“Spring. Blooms break forth from the startled earth. The sky laughs. The trees, abashed, dress themselves in verdant green. And the heavens are lush with starts. Redeem the time, the stars sing down. Redeem the dream.And the boy waking in the land of broken rocks, the dry land wet with spring rain, waking in the place where two dreams cross--the dream where seeds grow into trees of gold and the dream of the box that he cannot open.”

“Dr. Warthrop chopped off my finger with a butcher knife.”