Dan Wells Quotes & Sayings

They were a proud people, cheerful in the face of hardship, strong in the depths of captivity, and ruthless in their pursuit of freedom. — Dan Wells

It was a simple plan, but he was a simple man, and sometimes simple was good. — Dan Wells

Hold her arm out. I grabbed the body's right arm and pulled it straight. Rigor mortis makes a body so stiff you can barely move it, but it only lasts about a day and a half and this one had been dead so long the muscles had all relaxed again. Though the skin was papery, the flesh underneath was soft, like dough. Margaret sprayed the arm with disinfectant and began wiping it gently with a cloth. — Dan Wells

Had Jeb Jolley been attacked by a serial killer? It was certainly possible, but which kind? The FBI split serial killers into two categories: organized and disorganized. An organized killer was like Ted Bundy - suave, charming, and intelligent, who planned his crimes and covered them up as well as he could afterward. A disorganized killer was like the Son of Sam, who struggled to control his inner demons and then killed suddenly and brutally each time those demons broke free. He called himself Mr. Monster. Which kind had killed Jeb, the sophisticate or the monster? — Dan Wells

What I want you to do is think long and hard about this. You made us to kill and conquer, and we are doing it better than you ever anticipated. Far better than you could ever do yourselves. You are no match for us. Do not make us your enemy. Confirm. — Dan Wells

We're not talking about pitching in, we're talking about institutionalized rape. We're talking about the government taking full control over your body
what it's for, what you do with it, and what other people can do to it. I'm not letting some horny old dude screw me just because the law says I have to. - Xochi — Dan Wells

It's easier to fall back into the same old patterns of hate and retribution, because at least then we're doing something. — Dan Wells

Curing RM is in the realm of magical pixies and talking dogs that piss whiskey. It's impossible. — Dan Wells

Antisocial personality disorder," she said, her voice rising. "I looked it up. It's a psychosis." She turned away. "My son's a psychotic." "APD is primarily defined as a lack of empathy," I said. I'd looked it up, too, a few months ago. Empathy is what allows people to interpret emotion, the same way ears interpret sound; without it you become emotionally deaf. "It means I don't connect emotionally with other people. I wondered if he was going to pick that one. — Dan Wells

I used to have a list of people I was going to kill one day. It was against my rules now, but sometimes I really missed that list. — Dan Wells

I want to talk to you," she said, "for hours and days and forever, but we can't right now. Not here, and not while we're still in danger. — Dan Wells

I closed my eyes. The monster had named itself now - stolen its name from the Son of Sam, who'd called himself Mr. Monster in a letter to the paper. He'd begged the police to shoot him on sight, so he wouldn't kill again. He couldn't stop himself.
But I could. I am not a serial killer.
I put down the knife. — Dan Wells

Marcus smiled back at her nervously, eyeing not only the rifle but the pair of knives he now saw clipped to her belt. Not one knife - a pair of knives. Who needs two knives? How many things does she have to cut at once? He was in no hurry to find out. — Dan Wells

I'm going to cure RM." Marcus laughed. "I wondered when someone would finally get around to that. It's been on my to-do list for ages, but you know how things are: Life gets so busy, and saving the human race is such an inconvenience. — Dan Wells

I'm on the edge, Neblin, I'm off the edge - I'm over the edge and falling into hell on the other side.'
'Calm down, John,' he said. 'We can work through this. Just tell me where you are.'
'I'm down in the cracks of the sidewalks,' I said, 'in the dirt and in the blood, and the ants are looking up and we're damning you all, Neblin. I'm down in the cracks and I can't get out. — Dan Wells

What, do you think I sell puppies? — Dan Wells

Sometimes the hand that feeds you needs a good bite. — Dan Wells

Most fires crackle and pop, but that's not really the fire talking, it's the wood. To hear the fire itself you need a huge blaze like this one, a furnace so powerful it roars with its own wind. I crouched as close as I dared and listened to its voice, a whispered howl of joy and rage. — Dan Wells

The books in the library were old, rotted, and there was no one left in the world to read them, but Kira made sure that none of them went into the fire. It seemed wrong. — Dan Wells

The rain would fall, the plants would grow, the animals would eat and kill and die and grow again, and the ghost of sentient life would fade away, an insignificant blip in the memory of the Earth. Someday, a million years away, maybe a billion, when another species evolved or awoke or descended from the stars, would they even know that anybody had been here? — Dan Wells

When a clown kills somebody, that's new - that's something you've never seen before. Here's someone you thought was good, and he's doing something so terrible that normal human emotion can't even deal with it - and then he turns around and does something good again. That's fascinating. It's not weird to be obsessed with that, it's weird not to be. — Dan Wells

Happiness is the most natural thing in the world when you have it, and the slowest, strangest, most impossible thing when you don't. It's like learning a foreign language: You can think about the words all you want, but you'll never be able to speak it until you suck up your courage and say them out loud. — Dan Wells

What really got to me was not the fact that animal cruelty could predict violent behavior - it's that up until I read about it, I never thought that it was wrong. I was killing animals and taking them apart, and I had all the emotional reaction of a kid playing with Legos. It's like they weren't real to m - they were just toys to play with. Things. — Dan Wells

It's a pretty big shock to realise that the only people you can identify with are psychopathic killers. — Dan Wells

Hello, Kanta. They're saying interesting things about you on the news," she said. "I wondered if you'd survived."
"He didn't," I said. "I killed him."
Silence.
"I killed Mkhai, too," I said. "Tens of thousands of years, gone in the blink of an eye."
"Why are you telling me this?" asked the voice.
"Because you're next," I said. "I'm the demon slayer. Come and get me. — Dan Wells

It doesn't matter what other people think when you're right - John Cleaver — Dan Wells

The last to fall were the buildings, distant and solemn, the gravestones for an entire world. — Dan Wells

Feelings aren't good or bad. They're just weak or strong. Love, for example, is weak: someone loves you, you love them back, you're happy for a while, and then it fades away. But if one of those lovers betrays the other, then you have a real emotion - then you have something powerful, something that leaves a mark you'll never be rid of. Betrayal is the most delicious of all, but it takes a while to set it up, and fear can be just as intense if you know what you're doing. — Dan Wells

You're weird, man," said Max, taking another bite of his sandwich. "That's all there is to say. Someday you're going to kill a whole bunch of people probably more than ten, because you're such an overachiever - and then they're going to have me on TV and ask if I saw this corning, and I'm going to say, 'Hell yes, that guy was seriously screwed up.'"
"Then I guess I have to kill you first," I said. — Dan Wells

I had called Brooke 'it'. That was stupid. That was ... horrifying. I was better than that ...
... Calling human beings 'it' was a common trait of a serial killer - they didn't think of other people as human, only as objects, because that made them easier to torture and kill. It was hard to hurt 'him' or 'her', but easy to hurt 'it'. 'It' didn't have any feelings. 'It' didn't have any rights. 'It' was just a thing, and you could do whatever you wanted with it. — Dan Wells

Did that dog just call me a bastard?" asked Sam. — Dan Wells

He'd have done better if he had a hat, but then I suppose drifters can't be choosers. — Dan Wells

Life comes from death, and weakness teaches us strength. — Dan Wells

The actual words I used," I said, "were that I followed strict rules to make sure I didn't do anything wrong. It seems like you'd be pretty happy about that, but instead you're yelling at me. This is why I need therapy."
"'Happy' is not a son who has to follow rules to keep himself from killing people," she shot back. "'Happy' is not a psychologist telling me that my son is a sociopath. 'Happy' is - "
"He said I was a sociopath?" That was kind of cool. I'd always suspected, but it was nice to have an official diagnosis. — Dan Wells

Even if I didn't have any empathy, she did, and that meant I could use it against her. Where logic failed, guilt might save the day. — Dan Wells

Being really good at something you shouldn't be doing doesn't make it any better," Mom said.
"It's a history class," I said, "and serial killers are a part of history. So are wars and racism and genocide. I guess I forgot to sign up for the 'happy stuff only' history class, sorry about that. — Dan Wells

That figures," said Mom, stepping in from the landing and closing the door. "The only member of this family with a normal relationship is a sociopath. — Dan Wells

This is the story of the end of the world, the rise and fall of human civilization, the creation of the Partials and the death of everything else. — Dan Wells

Delarosa was trying to save the human race," said Mkele. "Her only crime was that she was willing to go too far in order to do it. We decided, briefly, that we didn't want to go along with her, but look at us: We're hiding in a basement, letting Delarosa fight our battles, seriously considering lettering her deploy a nuclear bomb. We are long past the point where we can pick and choose our morality. We either save our species or we don't."
"Yes," said Tovar, "but I'd prefer it if we were still worth saving by the end of it. — Dan Wells

Freedom is a responsibility to be earned, not a license for recklessness and anarchy. If someday, despite our strongest efforts and our deepest determination, we finally fall, let it be because our enemies finally beat us, not because we beat ourselves. — Dan Wells

I wanted everything to stay the same, but you wanted things to be better, it's just ... going to be a whole lot worse for awhile first. And I think I knew that, and I was scared of it. - Marcus — Dan Wells

A plaque at the door congratulated her for climbing 1,860 individual stairs, and she nodded as she caught her breath. "Just my luck," she gasped. "I'm going to have the best glutes left in the planet, and there nobody here to see them. — Dan Wells

I never thought I had a heart until it was broken. It's hard to see the point of something that only ever causes pain. — Dan Wells

You're not even happy. You're throwing away your own life because you love someone who's not here anymore, and you hate it, and it's killing you. Love is the worst thing that ever happened to you, but you still love her. — Dan Wells

Sow a thought and reap an action, sow an action and reap a habit, sow a habit and reap a destiny - John Cleaver — Dan Wells

Have you heard about the MacDonald triad?" "Three traits shared by ninety-five percent of serial killers," said Dr. Neblin. "Bed-wetting, pyromania, and animal cruelty. You do, I admit, have all three. — Dan Wells

You're a hero,' Mom repeated, squeezing my hand and kissing my forehead. 'You saved six lives in that house! Six! Sure, one of them was a creep,' she looked at Lauren, 'but that's what makes it so good. "Love thine enemies."'
Lauren smiled at me. 'And don't worry about Curt,' she said. 'We are so broken up.'
'Six lives,' Mom repeated.
But I had been trying to save seven. — Dan Wells

Dead bodies are calm and silent - perfectly still, perfectly harmless. A corpse will never move, it will never laugh, and it will never judge. A corpse will never shout at you, hit you, or leave you. Far away from the zombies and junk that you see on TV, a corpse is actually the perfect friend. The perfect pet. I feel more comfortable with them than I do with real people. — Dan Wells

Just because someone's in charge of something doesn't mean they're in charge of everything. — Dan Wells

It's not that," said Samm, "it's just ... I used to think the world was worse for what we've done, both our species, but out here I don't think the world even cares who we are. Or were. We came and went, and life goes on, and the land that was always here before us will still be here after we're dead and gone. Birds will still fly. Rain will still fall. The world didn't end, it just ... reset. — Dan Wells

If that moron had told me you had women with you, I'd have let you in a lot sooner — Dan Wells

So, your plan is to murder a superior enemy army," said Tovar, "and then outrun the wind. I'm glad it's so simple. — Dan Wells

Trust me, from one sociopath to another: if you don't understand the reason for something, it's always love. — Dan Wells

It's good to see you," Said Haru.
"You can see me?" asked Marcus, patting himself in sudden shock."The potion must have worn off! That's the last time I give my lunch to a talking squirrel".
P12 — Dan Wells

We were a minor league team that didn't feed into any majors, in a town that loved just about every sport but ours. We were going nowhere and we knew it, so why not have fun? In the forties, when I was playing, we were officially the most violent team in the country, and that means probably the whole world, and by the way, that's why I could skate with no toes. A figure skater, a speed skater, an NHL forward, sure, you need your toes for control, but all that finesse takes a backseat when all you're trying to do is slam somebody into a wall and break all his teeth. — Dan Wells

I can't imagine you not saying a word," said Marcus."I think you'd go crazy first. — Dan Wells

Fear is about things that you can't control. The future or the dark, or someone trying to kill you. You don't get scared of yourself because you always know what you're going to do. — Dan Wells

It's like ... I can throw away my whole life trying to help somebody else, but i can only do something for me if I know it doesn't matter. — Dan Wells

You don't apologize for this Samm, it's love, and love doesn't weigh it's options and pick the best one. Love just wants things and it doesn't know why, and it doesn't matter why, because love is the only explanation love needs. — Dan Wells

Listen, John," said Neblin, leaning forward. "You have a lot of predictors for serial-killer behavior, I know - in fact, I think you have more predictors than I've ever seen in one person. But you have to remember that predictors are just that - they predict what might happen, they don't prophesy what will happen. Ninety-five percent of serial killers wet their beds and light fires and hurt animals, but that doesn't mean that ninety-five percent of kids who do those things will become serial killers. You are always in control of your own destiny, and you are always the one who makes your own choices - no one else. The fact that you have those rules, and that you follow them so carefully, says a lot about you and your character. You're a good person, John. — Dan Wells

It doesn't matter how many they kill," I told him. "And it's not awesome-it's wrong." "Then why do you talk about them all the time?" asked Max. "Because wrong is interesting. — Dan Wells

Well, thanks for not shooting anyone, I guess", said Marcus. "My contribution was to somehow refrain from peeing myself. You can thank me later. — Dan Wells

The most important thing you can ever know, is that whatever your purpose is, that's not your only choice. — Dan Wells

Embrace your complexity, stretch your creativity, and live up to your potential, you are what makes the world great. — Dan Wells

Life is a lone wolf, scratching out a living with teeth and claws and a heart of stone. — Dan Wells

It wasn't my mom at all, it was her sister Margaret - they were twins, and when their faces were masked I could barely tell the difference. Margaret's voice was a little lighter, though, a little more ... energetic. I figured it was because she'd never been married. — Dan Wells

I am stronger than my trials. — Dan Wells

Skousen remembered a world falling apart. Kira remembered a world pulling together to save itself. That was the difference. That was why Skousen and the Senate were too afraid to do what it took to solve this. If it was going to get done, it would have to be the plague babies who did it. — Dan Wells

An organized killer was like Ted Bundy suave, charming, and intelligent, who planned his crimes and covered them up as well as he could afterward. A disorganized killer was like the Son of Sam, who struggled to control his inner demons and then killed suddenly and brutally each time those demons broke free. He called himself Mr. Monster. — Dan Wells

I was angry that Trujillo had shot down my idea, but impressed that his own idea made so much sense, and then angry again that he would dare to be so good at something I considered my own personal domain. And then I was embarrassed for feeling so petty about it, and I was worried if I was right, and I was frustrated we hadn't found anything solid yet, and I was mad at Nathan, and scared for Brooke, and fascinated by this new killer - and all I wanted to do was get out, and away, and be by myself, even if it was just for a minute. Even just half a minute. Maybe just forever. — Dan Wells

You don't have to march into hell every single time they open the gate. — Dan Wells

Last of all, this book owes perhaps its biggest debt to the ultimate models for Kira and Heron and every other awesome girl in the Partials series: my two daughters. May you always have heroines to inspire you, role models to look up to, and the freedom and courage to make your own choices, no matter how simple or scary or hard or eternal they may be. — Dan Wells

The sheriff closed his eyes briefly, a visual sigh, and paused a moment before speaking. "We do not wish to discuss the nature of this case at this time, to help preserve the integrity of our investigation. As I said before, we appreciate everybody's discretion and calm attitude in not spreading rumors about this incident. — Dan Wells

It's not John who wants to cut his mother into tiny pieces, it's Mr. Monster. See? I feel better already. — Dan Wells

Rigor mortis was caused by a natural build-up of calcium in the muscles; living bodies used that calcium for various things, but in dead bodies it just built up and built up until the muscles grew rigid. In a day or so she'd be loose again from decay, but for now we had to knead the calcium out by hand, stroking and pressing and rubbing the flesh until it was soft and pliable. — Dan Wells

Tissue gas was an embalmer's worst nightmare - a highly infectious form of bacteria that thrived on dead tissue and released a noxious gas inside the body. Smell was usually the easiest way to detect it, but sometimes, as with this body, the smell was buried under other chemicals, and the only way to identify it was the 'skin-slip' Mom had found on the back, where interior gas bubbles separated the skin from the muscle. The gas itself was bad enough, because the stink would soon become so foul it would be all but impossible to cover up; that didn't reflect well on us when people showed up for the viewing. Even worse than the gas though, were the bacteria that made it. Once they got into your workspace, you might never get them out again. If we didn't put a stop to this right now, every body we embalmed would catch the same bacteria from our tools and table. It could destroy the entire business. — Dan Wells

Hockey,' mused Marcus. 'The sport of kings. — Dan Wells

Ready...set-y...spaghetti! — Dan Wells

Someday I'd have to tell her about Ed Gein, whose mother dressed him as a girl for most of his childhood. He spent most of his adulthood killing women and making clothes out of their skin. — Dan Wells

Could I stop myself? Once I tore that wall down, could I rebuild it? Did — Dan Wells

Serial killers are usually - virtually always, in fact - slaves to their own compulsions. They kill because they have to, and they can't stop themselves. I don't want to get to that point, so I set up rules about smaller things - like how I like to watch people, but I don't let myself watch one person for too long. If I do, I force myself to ignore that person for a whole week, and not even think about it. — Dan Wells

Trust me," I said, "from one sociopath to another: if you don't understand the reason for something, it's always love." He — Dan Wells

She would worry about Samm and Marcus when she wasn't running for her life. — Dan Wells

I'm sorry," he said again. "I think I'm in love. . ." He paused. "I don't think she even knows. — Dan Wells

The idea that I might be sociopathic was nothing new to me - I'd known for a long time that I didn't connect with other people. I didn't understand them, and they didn't understand me, and whatever emotional language they spoke seemed beyond my capacity to learn. Antisocial personality disorder could not be officially diagnosed until you were eighteen years old - prior to that it was just "conduct disorder." But let's be honest: conduct disorder is just a nice way of telling parents their kids have antisocial personality disorder. I saw no reason to dance around the issue. I was a sociopath, and it was better to deal with it now. — Dan Wells

They buried him in dirt that smelled like broken batteries, and crouched in a fiberglass shed while the acid rain poured down to dissolve his flesh and bleach his bones. — Dan Wells

Tissue gas was most common in bedsores - big, nasty ones on hospital patients, or on old people who never moved for weeks or months at a time. Gangrene was another possible source of the bacteria, and usually showed up in the same types of cases. It was possible that this body could have developed tissue gas in one of those ways if she'd been held in one place for months on end, without being allowed to move. — Dan Wells

Facts are too busy being true to worry about how you feel about them. — Dan Wells

Enough about body language," said Kira. "I want to practice the link so hit me."
"Hitting you won't make the link easier to detect."
"It's an expression," said Kira. — Dan Wells

She was acting funny, like she was . . . I couldn't tell. I had trained myself to read visual cues from people I knew well, so that I could tell what they were feeling, but someone like Brooke was illegible to me. — Dan Wells

I stared at her closely, studying her face, her eyes, everything. This was the angel that tamed a demon; the soul that trapped him and held him with a power he'd never felt before. Love. — Dan Wells

It's not enough, is it? Just to follow; just to have faith in someone bigger and smarter and better informed. That's how we're built, that's how every Partial is wired - to follow orders and trust in our leaders - but it's not enough. It never has been. We've followed our leaders, and sometimes they win and sometimes they lose; we do what they say and we play our part. But this is our decision. Our mission. And when we're done, it will be our victory, or our defeat. I don't want to fail, but if I do, I want to be able to look back and say, 'I did that. I failed. That was all me. — Dan Wells

I'm not scared anymore, I just ... I don't know. I think it's because I saw someone else, someone behind your face, like you'd taken off a mask. It was still you, but it wasn't. And I don't think that person is going to hurt me, or Marci, or anybody else, but ... I guess the thing is that I don't know anything about that person. At all. And that's what scares me more than anything - that there could be two people, so different, and one of them so secret. — Dan Wells

This was the thing that terrified me the most - more than the victim, more than the demon, more even than the dark thoughts. It was the fact that the dark thoughts were mine. That I couldn't separate myself from evil, because most of the evil in my life came from inside my own head.
How long could I live like this? I was trying to be two people - a killer on the inside, and a normal person on the outside. I made such a show of being a good, quiet kid, who never caused problem and never got into trouble, but now the monster was out, and I was actually using him - I was actively seeking out another killer. I'd given in. I was trying to be John and Mr. Monster at the same time.
Was I fooling myself, thinking that I could split my life like this? Was it possible to be two people, one good and one bad, or was I forced to be a mix of both - a good person forever tainted by evil? — Dan Wells

Clayton High School was old and falling apart, like everything else in town. Kids bused here from all over the county, and I guessed a good third of the students came from farms and townships outside the city limits. There were a couple of kids I didn't know - some of the outlying families home-schooled their kids up until high school - but for the most part the kids here were the same old crowd I'd grown up with since kindergarten. Nobody new ever came to Clayton, they just drove through on the interstate and barely glanced as they passed by. The city lay on the side of the highway and decayed, like a dead animal. — Dan Wells

Fine, then," she said. "If you don't want to talk, that's fine. I don't think I would want to in your situation either, frankly, but then again I don't know if I could help myself. Humans are very social creatures; we like to communicate in order to feel
"
"You talk too much."
Kira stopped, eyes wide. His voice was dry and hoarse from days of disuse
as far as she knew, it hadn't said a word since they'd captured it, now more than fifty hours ago. She almost wasn't sure she heard him right. The first human to communicate with another species in eleven years, she though, and he tells me to shut up. — Dan Wells

Alone we were just one weird kid who talked to himself and one weird kid who never talked to anyone; together we were two weird kids having a semblance of a conversation. It wasn't much, but it made us look a little more normal. Two wrongs made a right. — Dan Wells

This is life ... Not a peace treaty, not an idealistic dream, but a grim dance of death and survival. The strong live on while the weak
the ones too small or too foolish to fight back
die in agony and blood. — Dan Wells

More and more," said Heron, reaching a distance about ten feet away from him, and slowly circling to the side. "Kira, sweetie, I'm going to murder your dad. — Dan Wells

You're talking to me and I'm not scary." Said Kira.
"Yes you are!" said Afa. — Dan Wells