Dystopian Fiction Quotes

Sure, you can break a man. Bend his will, even, but be careful with the ones that break easily. Those are the ones you have to keep a close eye on. Those are the ones that play possum and hide in the shadows. Just waiting for their time to strike! That's when you're most vulnerable. When you're surrounded by friends.

The lucky ones died in the blasts. They were spared the fate of starvation, cannibalism, rape and slaughter. Where a man could be killed over half-eaten can of corn.

The law isn't merciful.

Feeling lurks in that interval of time between desire and its consummation.

The paperweight was the room he was in, and the coral was Julia's life and his own, fixed in a sort of eternity at the heart of the crystal.

You’ll find a way. You’ll always find a way. And on the rare occasions when you can’t, you’ll have friends who will.

He could argue a case for anything, but that doesn’t change the fact he’s wrong most of the time.

Once upon a time there was war, and starvation, and death. Once upon a time we would kill our brothers and sisters, fearing for our own lives. Once upon a time the characters turned from us, and we wept. Now we do not war, nor do we fear, nor do we weep. We Redact.

They walked through the rainy dark like gaunt ghosts, and Garraty didn't like to look at them. They were the walking dead.

It had been along time since I breached the surface of the world above. My parents wouldn’t allow it. So as far as I knew, the survivors that remained were savages. I’d seen a few things before our colony was built and most of the inhabitants left ran wildly through the bare, desert terrain, filth covering them from head to toe, bones protruding their leathery skin, and foam dripping from their mouths in search of one thing…Nourishment.

The storage capacity of the average human brain is two-hundred and fifty-six exabytes. However, the average adult human only uses approximately one billionth of that storage space effectively. This means my knowledge capacity is approximately three thousand trillion times that of your average human.

You shouldn’t say mean things to people before they kill you. It’s being a sore loser.

Prince Maxon surveyed the room and found me. Our eye met for a moment, and he smiled.

We all end up dying in the end. It’s just a question of how and when.

That's the thing I'm learning about being thrown out on yer own. Nobody does nothing for you. If you don't change it, it don't get changed.

He doesn't trust people because he knows they are all the same. Everyone cares about their own survival and nothing else, just like him. Since he is more than willing to kill for it, so are they. After all, he has endured through all these years, leading him to be alone, it was the only conclusion that made sense.

That was a double negative, Jemail. By saying that you haven’t seen nobody, you’re actually saying that you have seen somebody.

If the only option you leave poor people with is to resort to violence in order to survive, they’ll do just that. And there are lots more poor people in this world than there are rich ones.

When I watched you dancing that day, I saw something else. I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go. That is what I saw. It wasn't really you, what you were doing, I know that. But I saw you and it broke my heart.

Nature is cheaper than therapy.

We need to keep government small, but we also need to keep the influence of big business small, and we need to keep the power in the hands of the people, where it belongs. Big government and big business aren’t the only two alternatives.

You pays your money and you takes your choice.

Let them come. We’ve got helicopters, tanks, jets, and big guns. We’ve got armies of robots. What do they have but their stench and the squalor they live in?

A good friend is someone who gets ya drunk and then walks ya home afterwards.

Inside the room there sat a rocker, which she sat on, and which had rocked her while she sipped the beer, because in spite of herself she had become so giddy to have so quickly relieved her heart that she allowed herself to lean backwards while in the rocker, which had made it possible for the rocker to rock her, although it was not her intention to be so rocked. Also there stood an ironing board with a still hot iron on it that was burning a yellow shift, and there was, among several items that were not as noticeable to the woman, and yet were noticeable enough to at least bear mention, a fake man."I hope you don't mind me asking," said the woman who lived in the room, but then while in her chair she nodded off.

That what?" "That I knew i misjudged you. That you love him. I'm not saying In what way. Maybe you don't know yourself. But anyone paying attention could see how much you care about him," he says gently.

Everyone has the right to believe whatever he or she wants. Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans, atheitsts, and every other religion. People can follow whichever they choose. Even if you and I believe Christianity is the truth, we must allow others to choose their own beliefs. You can’t force anyone to believe something they don’t, anyway.

I am chaos in this ordered society, the flaw in a carefully wrought plan. I am turbulence in the queen's eternal river.

Money is a tool we use to reach certain ends. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s hard to come by, though, so when opportunities arise, we need to make the most of them.

What’s not to love? I made friends with a pretty girl and now we get to plan a castle break in. This beats the day to day kill, eat and survive.

They are as smart as they are ruthless. That's why they've been around for all five years.

Ask very pointed questions. Sharp as sword blades, or laser blasts, if you catch my meaning.

Not many people bothered to look for beauty beyond the greenhouses. They went about life with their heads down, just praying to get through the day, to feed themselves and their family. No one ever did anything to make it better.

Generalities are intellectually necessary evils.

And it is strange that absence can feel like presence.

But he couldn’t risk taking the helmet off. It was the only thing saving him from the firing squad. He was no longer able to keep his thoughts silent. No longer able to squash his misgivings about what he had done.

But a thought swarmed in me; what if he, this yellow-eyed being – in his ridiculous, dirty bundle of trees, in his uncalculated life – is happier than us?

Pluto claimed that in ancient times, all humans had been a combination of male and female. Each person had two heads, four arms, four legs. Supposedly, these combo-humans had been so powerful they made the gods uneasy, so Zeus split them in half - man and woman. Ever since, humans had felt incomplete. They spent their whole lives searching for their other halves.

Don’t stay with someone who drives you crazy. Find someone who keeps you sane.

It’s degrading being routinely subjected to a battery of medical tests to ensure I continue to deserve a place in this new world.

... Remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest.

They were like her rocks. Imperfect and surprising and maybe better in the long run than certainties. Chances, she thought, were life

... she wore a masterpiece smile with smudges of paint and graphite across her cheek, and her eyes were a Jackson Pollock painting.

That’s what you people do, isn’t it? Make assumptions and sell them to impressionable idiots.

I would cry if I could, but instead I just feel my heart rip apart.

A leader’s first duty is to look after his or her people, especially those who are sick, hungry, or thirsty.

Well you know what they say. It’s always raining somewhere.

Fantastic,” I said without an ounce of enthusiasm. “I’m just one more embarrassing confession away from taking over the world.” --Spencer Nye

What I always hate is when people call our movement a 'revolution'. For this to be a revolution, we would have to be opposing a standing government. Look around; there is no standing government.

My chest tightens to the point I fear my heart will suffocate from the pressure of it. Society's standards are the total opposite from how I was raised. The boy who I thought to be so strikingly handsome has less than a year of his life to live, my new friend only a few more months beyond that. Yet they are living these uneventful lives in which they don't think there is a reason for anything. Will I ever see my mother again, or is this how I will be forced to live the rest of my life, as well?

There’s a big difference between being numb to something and being immune to it.

When you stop being owned by your emotions you'll stop feeling vulnerable to people. ~ Remiel

He felt as if he had left a stage behind and many actors. He felt as if he had left the great seance and all the murmuring ghosts. He was moving from an unreality that was frightening into a reality that was unreal because it was new.

You can keep your paper promisesand all your worldly treasures.But you cannot buy peace of mindor escape from the headstone garden.Lyrics from "Headstone Garden" by the Troubled Land Band at the Independence Day celebration 12 years after the impact that destroyed civilization.

Fear walks through the City, fear without name, without shape. All men feel it and none dare to speak.

Well, for one, you walk around like you’re so much better than everyone else. We’re all a bunch of soulless animals or somethin’ in your eyes, I guess. You’re the high and mighty one and I ain’t fit to drink your piss.

Sound bytes. Catch phrases. Sales pitches. Words. All lexical legitimizing. ‘A rose by any other name…’ he said. In the end it’s all propaganda.

Mortal has not been a habitable place for a long time. We have been trying to survive patching it but one day it will break completely. Twinmortal is the future for all of us. You will achieve that future for us by learning has much as you can.

Everybody stood dead still. It was as if now that we were about to get out of the Tower for the first time since the flood, we were scared, like we were crossing some line that we wouldn’t be able to uncross.--Greenleigh

Humans have been doin’ awful things to each other throughout history. Humanity’s not as great as you make it out to be. I do what needs to be done, and that’s that. We’re about to go to war, Earl. There ain’t no humanity in war.