The Troop Quotes
"The hunger pangs would stop, he assured himself. His stomach could only hold so much—wasn't that, like, a scientific fact? But this was unlike anything he'd ever known."
"The wickedness of others becomes our own wickedness because it kindles something evil in our own hearts."
"I promised to love God and take care of the world."
"People were unfailingly friendly and respectful of his skills, but his veins swam with mainlander blood."
"Congratulations, Ms. Thornton, he's a healthy baby nerd."
"His mind naturally gravitated to the most likely causes, and from there coolly cataloged the possible effects."
"It is a fact that cannot be denied: the wickedness of others becomes our own wickedness because it kindles something evil in our own hearts."
"It wasn’t his job to be caught imbibing publicly."
"He was unmarried and childless—a situation that, at forty-two, in a small town harboring precious few dating prospects, he didn’t expect to change."
"He wasn’t going back. He’d hide and stay hidden."
"A Scout obeys his Scoutmaster without question. Even if he gets an order he does not like, he must do as soldiers and policemen do; he must carry it out all the same because it is his duty."
"Energy was never in short supply among that group."
"He didn’t want to see. Not now, at night, alone in this dark."
"I’d talk more if people—I mean the other kids at school—gave two cruds what I have to say."
"My own Facebook page has ten friends. My mom, a few uncles and aunts, my grandmother—'I bought you a new pair of jeans from the Husky department at Simpson’s Sears in Charlottetown, Newtie!'—and a few pen pals."
"On the Internet, I can be my brain without my body."
"It’s an internship, consider it an early residency."
"This is the God moment, folks. You hold it all in your hands right now. So honor the body beneath your blade."
"Don’t you think you’re making the right decision? I think you should stop."
"I’m going to the garden to eat worms, to eat worms."
"Shelley was positive the boat wasn’t coming."
"Shelley was actually happy with this perception. It made it easier to engage in the behaviors that gave him pleasure—though he failed to experience pleasure in the ways others did."
"He turned his vaporous test-pattern face up to the new sun. It was warm and not unpleasant."
"You figure the Masked Skunk made off with it, too?"
"The father who was currently a guest of the province at the Sleepy Hollow correctional center following a string of convenience store thefts—one of which netted the princely sum of $5.02."
"The face of Newt’s Timex Ironman read 8:23. The boat was scheduled to arrive at 8:30."
"Kent’s eyes sat deep in his skull, the flesh around them netted in fine wrinkles: it looked a little like the wattle on an old biddy’s neck."
"Shelley’s uncle was a lobsterman, so it could be true."
"He’d hoped to duck away with Max, sharing a smoke down by the shore while they stared at the stars."
"Your breath stinks like shit. Like cotton candy that someone took a big piss on. Can’t you smell it?"
"It’s always good to have a little fear, son, especially at your age."
"The Scoutmaster’s face fell apart in sections."
"The air inside the cellar seemed to condense and turn to cold lead in the boys’ lungs."
"We’ve got to get inside. It’s going to hit us any minute."
"They picked their way up the beach toward the cabin."
"If you can’t unlock them, you just kick at them until they give."
"Just think of it all like chicken or something."
"Whose fault is it that the Scoutmaster is dead?"
"What would you rather, Eef? Put up with a little pain or get your eyes eaten out by worms?"
"You can’t be Jeff Jenks’s kid and not be a tough sonofabitch."
"Noooooobody loves me, everybody hates me, I’m going to the garden to eat worms—to eat worms."
"I don’t know, Newt. I’m not the one who makes those choices, am I?"
"The night’s silence stretched over the immensity of the ocean—an impossibly quiet vista that stirred fear in Max’s heart. Would death be like that: endless liquid silence?"
"Insects can make a home for themselves almost anywhere. They say that about cockroaches: if there’s ever a global Armageddon, they’ll be the only things left. You can’t beat a bug for adaptability."
"You can’t argue with someone who’s already made up his mind."
"Human beings couldn’t function in a state of perfect ongoing terror, could they? Their bodies would seize like a car with sugar in its gas tank, minds fusing shut as paralysis leeched into their bones."
"Maybe the universe ought to find better targets. Had to be plenty of psychopaths and deadbeats out there, right? Why pick on a couple of kids? The universe could be a stone-cold asshole sometimes."
"Fear had blown the blood right out of their skin."
"It was as if fear had blown the blood right out of their skin."
"Their necks and arms were rashed with gooseflesh."
"The flashlight in his hands shone on the rock behind the other boy."
"The spark plugs slipped from his numbed hands."
"The hiss of an adder that crested and eddied."
"Its legs looked: like bones wrapped in skin-colored Christmas paper."
"Its voice was the lonely squeal of a hermit."
"Its stomach was an obscenely pendulous appendage."
"Huge knobs of flesh seeped filth all over its shoulders."
"Decisive actions of men like me make second-guessing possible."
"I’m not saying it doesn’t make for some uneasy nights."
"They may have gone—pardon my French—batshit."
"You just hold on to life until it gets ripped away from you."
"People thought they knew what had happened on that island."
"The water had the sterile chlorine smell of a public pool."
"A nameless hunger was building inside of him."