Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies

"It’s not about keeping up the population, it’s about passing on who we are and what we've learned, so things keep going. So we don’t just end."

"... we shoved out many hopes and fears into their hands, believing those hands were strong because they had firm handshakes. They failed us, always. There was no way they could not fail us - they were human, and so were we."

"...wanting change is step one, but step two is taking it."

"There is no ideal world for you to wait around for. The world is always just what it is now, and it's up to you how you respond to it."

"The burning red taste of blood floods my mouth. The sparkle of life sprays out of his cells like citrus mist from an orange peel, and I suck it in."

"I think I remember what love was like before. There were complex emotional and biological factors. We had elaborate tests to pass, connections to forge, ups and downs and tears and whirlwinds. It was an ordeal, an exercise in agony, but it was alive. The new love is simpler. Easier. But small."

"I would like my life to be a movie so I could cut to a montage."

"How do I appear unthreatening when her lover's blood is running down my chin?"

"Is this muteness a real physical handicap? One of the many symptoms of being Dead?Or do we just have nothing left to say?"

"I'd like to sit down with him and pick his brain, just a tiny bite somewhere in the frontal lobe to get a taste of his thoughts" -Warm Bodies"

"Are we all just Dark Age doctors, swearing by our leeches? We crave a greater science. We want to be proven wrong."

"I'm watching her talk. Watching her jaw move and collecting her words one by one as they spill from her lips. I don't deserve them. Her warm memories. I'd like to paint them over the bare plaster walls of my soul, but everything I paint seems to peel."

"Soft flesh is eaten by hard teeth."

"I erupt from the dark, crushing tunnel into a flash of light and noise. A new kind of air surrounds me, dry and cold, as they wipe the last smears of home off my skin. I feel a sharp pain as they snip something, and suddenly I am less. I am no one but myself, tiny and feeble and utterly alone. I am lifted and swungthrough great heights across yawning distances, and given to Her. She wraps around me, so much bigger and softer than I ever imagined from inside,and I strain my eyes open. I see Her. She is immense, cosmic. She is the world. The world smiles down on me, and when She speaks it’s the voice of God, vast and resonant with meaning, but words unknowable, ringing gibberish in my blank white mind."

"I want to change my punctuation. I long for exclamation marks, but I'm drowning in ellipses."

"Was it just fear? the voices wonder. We were fearful in the best of times; how could we cope with the worst? So we found the tallest walls and poured ourselves behind them. We kept pouring until we were biggest and strongest, elected the greatest generals and found the most weapons, thinking all this maximalism would somehow generate happiness. But nothing so obvious could ever work."

"I have begun to wonder where I came from. The person I am now, this fumbling, stumbling supplicant... was I built on the foundations of my old life, or did I rise from the grave a blank state? How much of me is inherited, and how much is my own creation? Questions that were once just idle musings have begun to feel strangely urgent. Am I firmly rooted to what came before? Or can I choose to deviate?"

"The shadows of the room pool in the lines of our faces, draining our eyes of hue. "There's nothing left worth saying."

"Every time I go to sleep, I know I may never wake up. How could anyone expect to? You drop your tiny, helpless mind into a bottomless well, crossing your fingers and hoping that when you pull it out on its flimsy fishing wire it hasn't been gnawed to bones by nameless beast below. Hoping you pull up anything at all. Maybe this is why I only sleep a few hours a month. I don't want to die again. This has become clearer and clearer to me recently, a desire so sharp and focused I can hardly believe it's mine: I don't want to die. I don't want to disappear. I want to stay."

"Deep under our feet the Earth holds its molten breath, while the bones of countless generations watch us and wait."