Pines Blake Crouch Quotes

I wish we lived in a world where actions were measured by the intentions behind them. But the truth is, they’re measured by their consequences.

Never assume you know where someone else is coming from.

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.

Nature doesn’t see things through the prism of good or bad. It rewards efficiency. That’s the beautiful simplicity of evolution. It matches design to environment.

For every perfect little town, there's something ugly underneath. No dream without the nightmare.

Perfection was a surface thing. The epidermis. Cut a few layers deep, you begin to see some darker shades. Cut to the bone—pitch black.

You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us. To the earth...a million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can’t imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven’t got the humility to try. We’ve been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we’re gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.

I’ve found in my life that sometimes the best company is your own.

I know it’s crazy, but I’m holding tight to the idea that a small act of kindness can have real resonance.

Since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve treated our world like it was a hotel room and we were rock stars.

They say all art—whether books, music, or visual—is a reaction to other art.

His experience, there was darkness everywhere human beings gathered. The way of the world. Perfection was a surface thing. The epidermis. Cut a few layers deep, you begin to see some darker shades. Cut to the bone - pitch black.

There were moments when you saw the people you loved for who they really were, separate from the baggage of projection and shared histories. When you saw them with fresh eyes, as a stranger might, and caught the feeling of the first time you loved them. Before the tears and the armor chinks. When there was still the possibility of perfection.

Sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to.” “Why?” “Because they’re the right things.

Because no matter what had happened in the past, in this harrowing present, everybody needed everybody.

YESTERDAY IS HISTORY. TOMORROW IS A MYSTERY. TODAY IS A GIFT. THAT’S WHY IT’S CALLED THE PRESENT. WORK HARD, BE HAPPY, AND ENJOY YOUR LIFE IN WAYWARD PINES!

I think I finally understand why God went away and left the world to destroy itself.

Since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve treated our world like it was a hotel room and we were rock stars. But we aren’t rock stars. In the scheme of evolutionary forces, we are a weak, fragile species. Our genome is corruptible, and we so abused this planet that we ultimately corrupted that precious DNA blueprint that makes us human.

What it comes down to for me is that I’d rather us make bad decisions as a group, than to live in the absence of freedom.

In some environments, safety and truth are natural born enemies. I would think a former employee of the federal government could grasp that concept.

His experience, there was darkness everywhere human beings gathered.

Day’ll come, when he’s grown and it’s too late, that you’d give a kingdom to go back and spend a single hour with your son as a boy. To hold him. Read a book to him. Throw a ball with a person in whose eyes you can do no wrong. He doesn’t see your failings yet. He looks at you with pure love and it won’t last, so you revel in it while it’s here.

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

A millennium without air or light pollution made for pitch-black skies. The stars didn’t just appear anymore. They exploded. Diamonds on black velvet. You couldn’t tear your eyes away.

In the world we came from, our existence was so easy. And so full of discontent because it was so easy. How do you find meaning when you’re one of seven billion? When food, clothing, everything you need is just one Walmart away? When we numb our minds to sleep on all manner of screens and HD entertainment, the meaning of life, of our existence and purpose, becomes lost.

deflating. Then empty. His diaphragm relaxed. He counted to three and squeezed the trigger. The British-made AWM bucked hard against his shoulder, the report dampened by the suppressor. Recovering from the recoil, he found his target in the sphere of magnification, still crouched on a flat-topped boulder on the floor of the canyon. Damn. He’d missed. It was a longer shot than he normally took, and so many

midmorning. The sky steel blue and not a cloud in sight. His perch was atop a thirty-foot guard tower that had been built on the rocky pinnacle of a mountain, far above the timberline. From the open platform, he had a panoramic view of the surrounding peaks, the canyon, the forest, and the town of Wayward Pines, which from four thousand feet above, was little more than a grid of intersecting streets, couched in a protected valley. His radio squeaked. He answered, “Mustin, over.” “Just had a fence strike in zone four, over.” “Stand by.

You are one ugly motherfucker.” Ethan chuckled. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist. It’s from a movie. Seriously, what the hell are you?

In some environments, safety and truth are natural born enemies.

How would one publish a living book, whose stories never ended?

When your world falls apart, cling to the familiar.

So we all embark wondering what lies over the horizon, what’s around the next bend. And isn’t that, in the end, what drives us?

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.

The sting and the shame of all he’s put her through are still raw. He can’t say for certain, but he suspects that if she’d done the same to him, he’d already be gone.

I have good intentions, but... But what? But all the time I fail. I hurt the ones I love.

He also carried that whiff of unearned arrogance that seems to cling to those who crave authority for the sheer sake of power.

His father asked Ethan in a raspy voice, “You spend time with your son?” “Much as I can,” he’d answered, but his father had caught the lie in his eyes. “It’ll be your loss, Ethan. Day’ll come, when he’s grown and it’s too late, that you’d give a kingdom to go back and spend a single hour with your son as a boy. To hold him. Read a book to him. Throw a ball with a person in whose eyes you can do no wrong. He doesn’t see your failings yet. He looks at you with pure love and it won’t last, so you revel in it while it’s here.” Ethan thinks often of that conversation, mostly when he’s lying awake in bed at night and everyone else is asleep, and his life screaming past at the speed of light—the weight of bills and the future and his prior failings and all these moments he’s missing—all the lost joy—perched like a boulder on his chest.

Since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve treated our world like it was a hotel room and we were rock stars. But we aren’t rock stars. In the scheme of evolutionary forces, we are a weak, fragile species.

pausing as the first radials of sunlight struck its translucent skin. Its progression down through the boulder field had been slow and careful, stopping occasionally to sniff the remains of others like it. Others Mustin

They didn’t live anymore in a world where life was to be colorful and celebrated. Life had become something you clung to, that you bit down hard on against the pain, like the rubber block in a session of electroshock therapy.

He watched the stars go dark as the sun breathed fire into the sky, and when it finally cleared the ridge on the far side of the river, he bathed in the rays of gorgeous warmth streaming into his alcove and toasting the frozen stone.

If I wanted to bring you down, David, I could’ve done that months ago.” “If I wanted you dead, Agent Hassler—you and everyone you love—there is nothing in the world stopping me from making that happen. Not from prison. Not from the grave.” “So we’ve established trust,” Hassler said. “Perhaps. Or at the very least, assured mutual destruction.” “No difference in my book.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?” JOB

In the world we came from, our existence was so easy. And so full of discontent because it was so easy. How do you find meaning when you’re one of seven billion? When food, clothing, everything you need is just one Walmart away? When we numb our minds to sleep on all manner of screens and HD entertainment, the meaning of life.

On his first attempt to get up, his knees buckled and he sat down hard enough to send

There are no rights anymore. No laws. Just force and fear.

¿Estás perdiendo la cabeza? -Dímelo tú No puedo -¿Por qué? Porque yo soy tú

He’d never hit a woman in his life, but as Pam moved in for more, he couldn’t shake the thought that it would feel so satisfying to connect his right elbow with this bitch’s jaw.

Wish we lived in a world where actions were measured by the intentions behind them. But the truth is, they’re measured by their consequences.

Like the first day of any new thing, it has been a long one, and he’s glad to see it end.

Perfection was a surface thing. The epidermis. Cut a few layers deep, you begin to see some darker shades.

The endorphin kick from the ping of a received text or a new e-mail.

When we numb our minds to sleep on all manner of screens and HD entertainment, the meaning of life, of our existence and purpose, becomes lost.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know what I was walling in, or walling out.’ Robert Frost wrote that.

If you look out at nature, you find that as you tend to see suspended animation, you tend to see immortality. GIST)

We’re a part of something here, Mr. Burke. Something that matters. All of us.” “Here’s the thing, Marcus, and I don’t want you to ever forget it. Nobody fucking asked me or anyone in that valley if we wanted to be a part of this.

understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?

warm, the sky above a deep and cloudless cobalt. The man checked the pockets of his slacks, and then of his single-breasted coat. No wallet. No money clip. No ID. No keys. No phone. Just a small Swiss Army knife in one of the inner pockets. *

The people in town, for the most part, can’t handle the truth of what’s out there. But you…you can’t handle the lie. The not knowing. You’re the first resident I’ve ever shared any of this with. Of course, it’s crushed your family to see the difficulty you’ve had.

The sun was gone, and in the wake of its passing, mountain ranges stood profiled against the evening sky like a misshapen saw blade. There was nothing to see of the pine forest a thousand feet below. Not a single speck of light anywhere that existed because of man.

He came to lying on his back with sunlight pouring down into his face and the murmur of running water close by. There was a brilliant ache in his optic nerve, and a steady, painless throbbing at the base of his skull—the distant thunder of an approaching migraine. He rolled onto his side and pushed up into a sitting position, tucking his head between his knees.

was a brilliant ache in his optic nerve, and a steady, painless throbbing at the base of his skull—the distant thunder of an approaching migraine. He rolled onto his side and pushed up into a sitting position, tucking his head between his knees. Sensed the instability of the world long before he opened his eyes, like its axis had been cut loose to teeter. His first deep breath felt like someone driving a steel wedge between the ribs high on his left side, but he groaned through

The old woman sat in her leather recliner, the footrest extended, a dinner tray on her lap. By candlelight, she turned the cards over, halfway through a game of Solitaire. Next door, her neighbors were being killed. She hummed quietly to herself. There was a jack of spades. She placed it under the queen of hearts in the middle column. Next a six of diamonds. It went under the seven of spades. Something crashed into her front door. She kept turning the cards over. Putting them in their right places. Two more blows. The door burst open. She looked up. The monster crawled inside, and when it saw her sitting in the chair, it growled. “I knew you were coming,” she said. “Didn’t think it’d take you quite so long.” Ten of clubs. Hmm. No home for this one yet. Back to the pile. The monster moved toward her. She stared into its small, black eyes. “Don’t you know it’s not polite to just walk into someone’s house without an invitation?” she asked. Her voice stopped it in its tracks. It tilted its head. Blood—from one of her neighbor’s no doubt—dripped off its chest onto the floor. Belinda put down the next card. “I’m afraid this is a one-player game,” she said, “and I don’t have any tea to offer you.” The monster opened its mouth and screeched a noise out of its throat like the squawk of a terrible bird. “That is not your inside voice,” Belinda snapped. The abby shrunk back a few steps. Belinda laid down the last card. “Ha!” She clapped. “I just won the game.” She gathered up the cards into a single deck, split it, then shuffled. “I could play Solitaire all day every day,” she said. “I’ve found in my life that sometimes the best company is your own.” A growl idled again in the monster’s throat. “You cut that right out!” she yelled. “I will not be spoken to that way in my own home.” The growl changed into something almost like a purr. “That’s better,” Belinda said as she dealt a new game. “I apologize for yelling. My temper sometimes gets the best of me.

sitting position, tucking his head between his knees. Sensed the instability of the world long before he opened his eyes, like its axis had been cut loose to teeter. His first deep breath felt like someone driving a steel wedge between the ribs high on his left side, but he groaned through the pain and forced his eyes to open. His left eye must have been badly swollen, because it seemed like he was staring through a slit. The greenest grass he’d ever seen—a forest of long, soft blades—ran down to the

red veins in his cheeks that suggested a lifetime of heavy drinking. “Can I help you?” the man asked. He straightened himself up, blinking hard through the migraine. It took

And stayed down, but his two friends were closing in—they’d be here in ten seconds—and behind them, a block back, that army of flashlights moved like a herd of cattle up the street, the sound of numerous footfalls on wet pavement getting louder and louder. Ethan fled back into the alley, relieved to find that those pair of lights he’d seen last time had vanished.

Long legs and longer arms, each tipped with a row of black talons. Sinewy. Wiry. And above all, humanoid, its skin in the sunlight as translucent as a baby mouse’s—mapped with a network of blue veins and purple arteries and even its heart faintly visible as a pinkish throb just right of center mass. snarling as strings of bloody saliva dangled from the corners of its lipless mouth, creamy eyes hard-focused on its target.

Fear suddenly wore him like a glove.

They say all art—whether books, music, or visual—is a reaction to other art, and I believe that to be true.

Can’t do this.” There were tears in her voice now, her throat clogged with emotion.

Back home, he’d often wake in the middle of the night to feel her arm thrown over him, her body contoured to his. Even on the hardest nights. Nights he’d come home late. Nights they fought. Nights he’d betrayed her. She brought so much more to the table than he ever had. She loved at light-speed. No hesitation. No regrets. No conditions. No reservations. While he hoarded his chips and held a part of himself back, she went all in. Every time.

knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid

his undergraduate degrees in English and creative writing from the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, publishing his first two novels within five years of graduation. Since then he has published eight additional novels as well as multiple

Is there a fate worse than being halfway evil?

Their affair had been three of the most intense, reckless, terrifying, happy, alive months of his life. Like how he imagined being on heroin felt if the high never ended, if every syringe didn’t also contain the possibility of death. They’d been partners at the time, and there had been one week when they’d been on the road together in northern California. Every night, they rented two rooms. Every night, for five days, he stayed with her. They barely slept that week. Couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Couldn’t stop talking when they weren’t making love, and the daylight hours when they had to pretend to be professionals made it all the more beautifully excruciating. He had never felt such a complete lack of self-consciousness around anyone. Even Theresa. Unconditional acceptance. Not just of his body and mind, but also of something more, of something indefinably him. Ethan had never connected with anyone on this level. The most generous blessing and life-destroying curse all wrapped up in the same woman, and despite the pain of the guilt and the knowledge of how it would crush his wife, whom he still loved, the idea of turning away from Kate seemed like a betrayal of his soul. So she had done it for him. On a cold and rainy night in Capitol Hill. In a booth over glasses of Belgian beer in a loud dark bar called the Stumbling Monk. He was ready to leave Theresa. To throw everything away. He had asked Kate there to tell her that and instead she had reached across the scuffed wood of a table worn smooth by ten thousand pint glasses and broken his heart. Kate wasn’t married, had no children. She wasn’t ready to jump off the cliff with him when he had so much pulling him back from the ledge. Two weeks later, she was in Boise, pursuant to her own transfer request. One year later, she was missing in a town in Idaho in the middle of nowhere called Wayward Pines, with Ethan off to find her. Eighteen hundred years later, after almost everything they had known had turned to dust or eroded out of existence, here they stood, facing each other in a toy shop in the last town on earth. For a moment, staring into her face at close range blanked Ethan’s mind. Kate spoke first. “I was wondering if you’d ever drop in.” “I was wondering that myself.” “Congratulations.” “For?” She reached over the counter and tapped his shiny brass star. “Your promotion. Nice to see a familiar face running the show. How are you adjusting to the new job?” She was good. In this short exchange, it was obvious that Kate had mastered the superficial conversational flow that the best of Wayward Pines could achieve without straining. “It’s going well,” he said. “Good to have something steady and challenging, I bet.” Kate smiled, and Ethan couldn’t help hearing the subtext, wondered if everyone did. If it ever went silent. As opposed to running half naked through town while we all try to kill you. “The job’s a good fit,” he said. “That’s great. Really happy for you. So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” “I just wanted to pop in and say hi.” “Well, that was nice of you. How’s your son?” “Ben’s great,” Ethan said.

there’s something ugly underneath. No dream without the nightmare.

How much of the crew has been awakened?” “Only eight, counting us.” They reach the automatic glass doors that open into the five-million-square-foot cavern that serves as a warehouse for provisions and building supplies. Affectionately called “the ark,” it is one of the great feats of human engineering and ambition. A damp, mineralized smell pervades. Massive globe lights hang down from the ceiling, stretching back into the ark as far as the eye can see. They walk toward a Humvee parked at the entrance to a tunnel, and already Pilcher is breathless, his legs threatening to seize up with cramps.

foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—while the morning stars

Day’ll come, when he’s grown and it’s too late, that you’d give a kingdom to go back and spend a single hour with your son as a boy. To hold him. Read a book to him. Throw a ball with a person in whose eyes you can do no wrong. He doesn’t see your failings yet. He looks at you with pure love and it won’t last, so you revel in it while it’s here

It was odorless, but on the tongue the overwhelming note was burn, followed by a strong citrus pucker, and a finish that was mercifully short, like the flavor had just fallen off a cliff.

Last year, the morning of the day he died in a nursing home, wasted from age and pneumonia, his father asked Ethan in a raspy voice, “You spend time with your son?” “Much as I can,” he’d answered, but his father had caught the lie in his eyes. “It’ll be your loss, Ethan. Day’ll come, when he’s grown and it’s too late, that you’d give a kingdom to go back and spend a single hour with your son as a boy. To hold him. Read a book to him. Throw a ball with a person in whose eyes you can do no wrong. He doesn’t see your failings yet. He looks at you with pure love and it won’t last, so you revel in it while it’s here.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know what I was walling in, or walling out.

Day’ll come, when he’s grown and it’s too late, that you’d give a kingdom to go back and spend a single hour with your son as a boy. To hold him. Read a book to him.

Throw a ball with a person in whose eyes you can do no wrong. He doesn’t see your failings yet. He looks at you with pure love and it won’t last, so you revel in it while it’s here.

And still, he was here. And by virtue of that fact, or rather because of it, this place wasn’t perfect. His experience, there was darkness everywhere human beings gathered. The way of the world. Perfection was a surface thing. The epidermis. Cut a few layers deep, you begin to see some darker shades. Cut to the bone—pitch black.

Blake Crouch is the author of over a dozen bestselling suspense, mystery, and horror novels. His short fiction has appeared in numerous short story anthologies, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Cemetery Dance, and many other publications. Much of his work, including the Wayward Pines series.

No wallet. No money clip. No ID. No keys. No phone. Just a small Swiss Army knife in one of the inner pockets.

I used to. When we were real people. When we could talk about the things in our hearts. You know this is the first real conversation I’ve had in years?

The greenest grass he’d ever seen—a forest of long, soft blades—ran down to the bank. The water was clear and swift as it flowed between the boulders that jutted out of the channel. Across the river, a cliff swept up for a thousand feet. Pines grew in clusters along the ledges, and the air was filled with the smell of them and the sweetness of the moving water.

She was broken and lonely, and beyond everything else, she missed her husband so much that even the uncertain possibility of a life with him—with their family reunited—might be worth signing everything else away.

He worries she’s going to ask what happened. Why he isn’t dead. It’s a question he’s been dreading and preparing for all day.

Held it up to the peephole, Theresa felt something break inside her. It was a photo of Ethan lying on a steel operating table, naked under clinical blue light.

Are you losing your mind? You tell me. I can’t. Why? Because I am you.

Pilcher lies on the gurney, blinking at the lights.

Management: Thank you for the support and counsel. Angela Cheng Caplan and Joel VanderKloot: You’re rock stars. So grateful to have you in my corner. A very special thanks to Jacque Ben-Zekry for a world-class

Have I ever done or said anything that would lead you to believe I would allow you to take my daughter away from me?

See, in my head, I know there’s no right or wrong, but my heart hasn’t made that connection

You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us. To the earth…a million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can’t imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven’t got the humility to try. We’ve been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we’re gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us. —Michael Crichton

Look, when violence becomes the norm, people adapt to the norm. No different than the gladiator games or throwing Christians to the lions or public hangings in the old West. An atmosphere of self-policing isn’t a bad thing.

To be warm again lifted his spirits, and to be in the wilderness, despite everything, spoke to something buried deep in the pit of his soul.