I wanted to kill them. No, not kill. "Kill" is too dull a word for that which I desired. I wanted to annihilate them. I wanted to tear them limb from limb. Furthermore, I wanted to crack their bones and bury my face in the wet remains. Furthermore, I wanted to reach inside their chests and yank out their hearts and devour the bloody meat as the last stray current twitched the muscle and watch their faces as they died.

— Justin Cronin

I would not say I was a nonbeliever; rather, that I gave little if any thought to celestial concerns. It did not seem to me that God, whoever he was, would be the sort of god to take an interest in the minutiae of human affairs, or that this fact released us from the duty to go about our lives in a spirit of decency to others.

— Justin Cronin

Last night they came again. The soldiers had set up a defense perimeter, but there were simply too many—they must have come by the hundreds of thousands, a huge swarm that blotted out the stars. Three soldiers killed, as well as Cole. He was standing right in front of me; they actually lifted him off his feet before they bored through him like hot knives through butter. There was barely enough of him left to bury.

— Justin Cronin

My theory of characterization is basically this: Put some dirt on a hero, and put some sunshine on the villain, one brush stroke of beauty on the villain.

— Justin Cronin

Never a good sign, he thought, when the crows showed up.

— Justin Cronin

Perhaps the greatest worry of all was that one day you would realize that all the worries of your life amounted to one thing: the desire to just stop worrying.

— Justin Cronin

Peter held up the book he had been reading: 'Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'." To tell you the truth, I'm not even sure this is English," Peter said. "It's taken me most today to get through a page.

— Justin Cronin

Real courage is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. Doing the unpopular thing because it's what you believe, and the heck with everybody.

— Justin Cronin

She thought she should take a moment to pray. But, as she was holding a loaded rifle, conventional prayer did not seem entirely suitable. Sister Peg hoped that God would help her, but it was her belief that He much preferred for people to attend to themselves. Life was a test; it was up to you to pass it or not. She raised the gun to her clavicle and angled one eye down the length of the barrel.

— Justin Cronin

So, at the last, a story.

— Justin Cronin