Howey Quotes & Sayings

there is a man blocking our way. Sitting astride a tractor with a big scooping bucket on the front, he yells at us for being on his property. We explain the boats, and he says we can't tie up there, that this is his restaurant. We say there's no room anywhere, that the Coast Guard won't let us leave, that they'll shoot at us if we do. He tells us we better go fucking home and get our guns. He tells us we're at war. — Hugh Howey

Sometimes a thing needed opening before closure was found. — Hugh Howey

By the time you're reading this warning, you've already acted responsibly. — Hugh Howey

Dust rained in the halls of Mechanical; it shivered free from the violence of the digging. — Hugh Howey

Where's the everlasting peace? Is there even such a thing? Or do we war like alien races war, eternally, against ourselves? I hope that's not right. I hope that's not how it all works. Beacon — Hugh Howey

People from IT sent to replace those they'd killed. Juliette's — Hugh Howey

A: Why yes you can! Even better if you tell others or write a review. I read every single review on Amazon, I promise. This is how books are discovered, so if you want other readers to find the books you're enjoying, take a few minutes and craft a review. Do it for all the books you enjoy. As writers, our souls subsist on your feedback. It means a lot to us! — Hugh Howey

I like to think of my good decisions today as investments in my future self. — Hugh Howey

And the earth sat upon his broken chest. — Hugh Howey

He awoke each morning with familiar shapes at the edges of his vision, could feel memories nearby, but by the time breakfast came, they were already fading. By dinner, they were lost. It left Troy with a sadness, a cold sensation, and a feeling like a hollow stomach
different from hunger
like rainy days as a child when he didn't know how to fill his time. It was the pain of a chronic boredom mixed with the discomfort of time wasted. — Hugh Howey

This wasn't the end of the end of the world. This was the beginning of something else. An end to the not knowing what was out there. — Hugh Howey

The meek don't inherit shit. Earth belongs to the wolves. — Hugh Howey

September 10, 2001. A storm is brewing in New York City. A clash is about to begin. Tempers will soon rise as historical conquests and slights are remembered and renewed on the eve of this fight between ancient and embittered foes. Yes, the Boston Red Sox are playing the New York Yankees. — Hugh Howey

Say bad things come in threes, but I don't think that's true. I think bad things keep right on coming. — Hugh Howey

Memories of bright and colorful worlds swirl together. The one thing in common is the brown mud on my boots. Slogging through battlefields. Noticing details like how the insides of sentient things have much in common: the same blood that colors red in the air, the sacs for breathing, the sacs for pumping blood through tubes, the tendrils for turning thoughts into things. — Hugh Howey

Here's what I tell the newly elected: the truth is gonna get out - it always does - but it's gonna blend in with all the lies." The Senator twirled a hand in the air. "You have to deny each lie and every truth with the same vinegar. Let those websites and blowhards who bitch about cover-ups confuse the public for you. — Hugh Howey

My favorite sort of read is the kind that opens my mind to new ideas. — Hugh Howey

Elise asked what nostalgic meant, and Jewel said, It's where you think the past was better than it really was, only because the present sucks so bad. — Hugh Howey

My life is too tight, he wanted to say. My skin is too tight. The walls are too tight. — Hugh Howey

She used to admire people who stood out, but now she could feel herself wary of them. — Hugh Howey

Ahead, twin rows of crape myrtles dot the road. They're losing their flowers. Purple petals ring the trunks, fallen mementos of a past bloom like photos from college years. But unlike people, trees flower again in the spring; they age in great looping circles. We ride a roller coaster once around, shuddering up clacking tracks and then screaming our fool heads off all the way down. — Hugh Howey

Tearing a world down was a simple affair; the gravity of human nature tugged willingly. It was the building up afterward that proved complex. It was what to replace injustice with that very few gave thought to. — Hugh Howey

The thing I hated while reading this book, it turns out, was me. Bad things happen, and shoulders are shrugged. The most serious of events are blended with the strange. The author pulled me inside his mind, and what I found there was a dead stillness, the somber and poignant wisdom of someone with little hope and scars across his eyes. — Hugh Howey

Happiness can come solely from within, but not for long - The Bern Seer - — Hugh Howey

That word means something else, you know,' his father had told him once, when Mission had spoken of revolution. 'It also means to go around and around. To revolve. One revolution, and you get right back to where you started. — Hugh Howey

Once guns were made, who would unmake them? Barrels rested on shoulders and bristled like pincushions above the crowd. There were things, like spoken ideas, that were almost impossible to take back. And he reckoned his people were about to make many more of them. — Hugh Howey

Go quietly, and you're a number. Go in spectacular fashion, and you're a name. I — Hugh Howey

I think that, with a lot of art, you just have to be bad at it a long time before the magic happens. — Hugh Howey

Changing yourself is supposed to mean hope, at least according to the self-help books and magazine paradigms, but for me - and I suspect many others - it simply means finding new ways to feel inadequate. — Noelle Howey

He continued to see inevitable events from the past as avoidable, long after they'd taken their course. — Hugh Howey

There have been a few workers we had to deep-freeze, some who aren't fit for another shift. — Hugh Howey

I've been married more to his ghost than to him. — Hugh Howey

He ran his hands along the faces of the machines, the flashing lights like happy eyes trying to soothe his anger, the electrical hum like whispers to their master, hoping to calm him. — Hugh Howey

Don't get like these assholes and fall in love with the fighting. Then you're just setting off bombs because you like the noise they make. — Hugh Howey

I remind myself that if there was anything in the air that would react with my body, it would've reacted with the scanner. What I really want right now is a second scanner to scan this scanner. — Hugh Howey

Wisely and slowly; they stumble that run fast. — Hugh Howey

Them up and trying to oil them, sand them, make them into something they could never be again - how — Hugh Howey

All it took was a lot of seemingly decent people to put the wrong person in power and then fall under their spell. Troy — Hugh Howey

These five links stand out in the chain that binds our will. They hold us, guide us, coerce us - And we rattle them still. ~The Bern Seer~ — Hugh Howey

Don't leave a man behind - especially not me. It's — Hugh Howey

Getting into shape helped get me into a better mood, and when I'm in a better mood, I'm funnier. My general attitude is better. — Steve Howey

Donald reached for the straw and steered it toward her lips. Such dangerous lips. They would tell him anything, keep him confused, use him so that she might feel less hollow, less alone. — Hugh Howey

Part of me knew I'd never see her again, and if I did, that we would both be different. — Hugh Howey

to love without sanction, — Hugh Howey

Health and understanding seem to intersect in one's forties, the one peaking as the other begins its slow ascent. Maybe you'll know one day what you should've taken the time to appreciate. — Hugh Howey

That hotshot pilot who buzzed the Hudson is forgotten. Here is something new. The boom and the smoke - these two things are unrelated in my mind. — Hugh Howey

She came alive as one returns from sleep. Alive but different. An empty husk capable of thought, of hearing, of processing. Of wanting men dead. — Hugh Howey

We are obsessed with sex, because those organisms who have this obsession leave behind many more copies of organisms with this obsession. — Hugh Howey

And how much simpler things would be, how much better for us all, if we had people brave enough to do what was right, instead. — Hugh Howey

A few lines to spell a man's doom. — Hugh Howey

This is the art of rationalization, and we do it so often that some researchers believe that a majority of our time is spent rationalizing. That is, we go around much of the day lying to ourselves about why we are doing most of the things we do. When — Hugh Howey

Her first thought was of food. The ding meant Donny bringing her food. — Hugh Howey

Her twitching muscles felt near enough like wracking sobs. Struggling on that table felt near enough like times she'd clutched her knees and sobbed quietly in the tub. Life and love. When the bad parts crept in, sometimes she wished it would end. Wished there was some quick way out for cowards. She loved her husband, wasn't sure how not to, but sometimes she sat in the tub with the water running dangerously hot and wanted out. Like now, just wanting to die. — Hugh Howey

Sooner or later, some nano attack would get through, get out of control, and there would be an epidemic built on bits of code rather than strands of DNA.' 'So — Hugh Howey

The older she got, the quicker her mind went to death. Always, in the end, the thoughts of death. — Hugh Howey

telling him how people had thought the same thing long before he and his brother were born, that it was the hubris of each generation to think this anew, to think that their time was special, that all things would come to an end with them. His father said it was hope that made people feel this, not dread. People talked of the end coming with barely concealed smiles. Their prayer was that when they went, they wouldn't go alone. Their hope was that no one would have the good fortune to come after and live a happy life without them. Thoughts — Hugh Howey

There was no planning for insanity. With enough revolutions and elections, enough transfers of power, eventually a madman would take the reins. — Hugh Howey

At the top of the ramp, Holston saw the heaven into which he'd been condemned for his simple sin of hope. — Hugh Howey

The Loud came before the quiet. That was a Rule of the World, for the bangs and shouts need somewhere to echo, just as bodies need space in which to fall. — Hugh Howey

When I needed an e-book formatted fast and formatted perfectly, Polgarus Studio came through for me. My expectations were exceeded. It's a relief knowing I can count on a hand-formatted e-book that will work on every device. Highly recommended! — Hugh Howey

This is what happens when they give you medals for breaking the rules: you forget the rules apply to you. — Hugh Howey

Clinging to an idealized past was a poison of sorts, that bastard Nostalgia, making people think there was a better time and place if they could just get back to it. — Hugh Howey

Ever since I was twelve, I dreamed of being an author. I just never had the fortitude to see any of my stories through to completion. I would start a book, get a few chapters in, and grow bored or get distracted by something else. — Hugh Howey

Another thing I noticed was how quickly the human brain paired causal events. "A" leads to "B." We love to make that link, however tenuous. — Hugh Howey

It wasn't that pain grew tolerable or the confusion went away. Instead, it simply became familiar. It became a part of you. — Hugh Howey

The suit came up, and Holston thought that maybe people went along with it because they couldn't believe it was happening. None of it was real enough to rebel against. The animal part of his mind wasn't made for this, to be calmly ushered to a death it was perfectly aware of. — Hugh Howey

Sometimes the real looks fake, especially when you've looked at the fake for so long. — Hugh Howey

We are not the people who made this world, Lukas, but it's up to us to survive it. You need to understand that."
"We can't control where we are right now," he mumbled, "just what we do going forward. — Hugh Howey

You laughed either to keep yourself sane or because you'd given up on staying that way. Either way, you laughed. — Hugh Howey

They put us in this game, a game where breaking the rules means we all die, every single one of us. But living by those rules, obeying them, means we all suffer. — Hugh Howey

they didn't want people talking.
Thinking was fine; they would bury you with your thoughts.
But no collaboration, no groups coordinating together, no change of ideas. — Hugh Howey

All the great coincidences and marvelous achievements of his life disappeared in a flash. In their place were puppet strings. 'A — Hugh Howey

I hated Sundays as a kid. From the moment I woke up, I could feel Monday looming, could feel another school week all piled up and ready to smother me. How was I supposed to enjoy a day of freedom while drowning in dread like that? It was impossible. A pit would form in my chest and gut - this indescribably emptiness that I knew should be filled with fun, but instead left me casting about for something to do.
Knowing I should be having fun was a huge part of the problem. knowing that this was a rare day off, a welcome reprieve, and here I was miserable and fighting against it. Maybe this was why Fridays at school were better than Sundays not in school. I was happier doing what I hated, knowing a Saturday was coming, than I was on a perfectly free Sunday with a Monday right around the corner. — Hugh Howey

There were certain things, learned so young and remembered so deep that they felt like little stones in the center of her mind. — Hugh Howey

Juliette felt a wash of fear and relief, those two opposites twisting together like staircase and rail. — Hugh Howey

Water," he said, licking his lips. She patted his shoulder. "I'll be right back. — Hugh Howey

Days passed until they threatened to make a week, and Jimmy could glimpse how weeks might eventually become months. Outside the steel door in the upper room, the men outside were trying to get in. On the radio, they yelled and argued. Jimmy listened sometimes, but all they talked about were the dead and dying and forbidden things, like the great outside. — Hugh Howey

Imagination just wasn't up to the task of understanding unique and foreign sensations. It knew only how to dampen or augment what it already knew. - Juliette, Pg. 139 — Hugh Howey

I'm such a huge fan of fan fiction, to me it's a great way for readers to become writers. It's like putting the training wheels on for writing. — Hugh Howey

At this point in my boating education, I didn't even know what a "norther" was. Nor did I appreciate what happens when wind blows against the direction of a current. I can tell you now what happens: The wind pushing against the flowing water causes the seas to build and build. They go vertical. They get steep. They form cliffs of ocean blue that boats can fall right off. I'd never heard of nor imagined such a thing. Scott and I were about to see such waves up close. — Hugh Howey

Sheltering the women and the children played some part; Troy was sure of that. The women and children of Silo One had been gifted with a long sleep while the men stayed and took shifts. It removed the passion from the plans, forestalled the chance that the men might fight among themselves. — Hugh Howey

Stay healthy is not a slippery slope toward unhealthy — Hugh Howey

Honestly, I don't think I'm a good promoter. I spend almost zero time or effort asking new readers to sample or purchase my work. That's not the job of the author. We should write our best material and leave it up to readers to spread the word. — Hugh Howey

Maybe prisoners in isolation feel what I feel: they hate their guards, but a beating now and then is at least some human contact. — Hugh Howey

Bad things come in threes - but then they stop. And start all over again. — Hugh Howey

She would've been torn between acting cool and nonchalant and wanting to geek out over the experience. — Hugh Howey

I'm sorry." Two words that I used to choke on when I was younger, that I only now know the value of, the true worth, and how good they feel to say. — Hugh Howey

Cordyceps." "That's a fungus? Never heard of it." "Says here it does something to an ant's brain, reprograms it like it's a machine, makes it climb to the top of a plant before it dies - " "An invisible machine that reprograms brains? I'm fairly certain that's not a random entry." "Yeah? So what does it mean, then?" "It means ... It means we aren't free. None of us are. — Hugh Howey

Hugh Howey and Amanda Hocking come to mind immediately as authors who managed to build a successful following without the initial support of a large publisher. — Jennifer Armintrout

Being in my mom's skin, feeling what she'd felt those years before. It was the sudden realization that my dying granny, who had been distant and alien to me, was my mom's mom. — Hugh Howey

Just know that it takes a bit of courage to unlearn that shame, and to be there for others when they try to unlearn that shame, and that it all gets easier after you feel how healthy it is. — Hugh Howey

It was the hubris of each generation to think this anew, to think that their time was special, that all things would come to an end with them. — Hugh Howey

sucked in his breath, and a slice of time hung in the air between them, a pause where hearts did not beat and eyes did not blink. — Hugh Howey

That secret was a powerful drug. — Hugh Howey

One of the many things that surprised me about 'Wool' is how many of its fans don't consider themselves science fiction readers. — Hugh Howey

Our actions, you know? They last forever. Whatever we do, it'll always be what we did. There's no taking them back. — Hugh Howey

And the stains would never wash out. That's what Lukas was saying. She would always have hurt her father. Was that the way to phrase it? Always have had. It was immortal tense. A new rule of grammar. — Hugh Howey

You were just doing your job, she assured him. And then she thought just how powerful that sentiment was, how far down a nasty road that could take a person, shuffling along and simply doing their job. — Hugh Howey

inferred by the pattern to either side, the small pyramidal bumps rising from the flat steel with their crisp edges and flecks of paint. Holston lifted an old boot to an old step, pressed down, — Hugh Howey

Things don't come true. They are true, or they aren't. — Hugh Howey