Peeps Quotes
"Peeps always run from the things they used to love."
"Humans don’t have hollow bones or wings—the disease doesn’t change that."
"The worst part of visiting the Shrink was being read like a book."
"A compliment from a five-hundred-year-old is like when your aunt says you're cute."
"We're all really robots, walking around doing the bidding of our parasites."
"We only need a warrant if you want the evidence to stand up in court. But I'm not taking anyone to court. This isn't a criminal investigation."
"I'm not jerking you around. You should try the pepper steak."
"Smell is the most sensitive of our senses, Roger."
"You know you're wearing the same shirt today as in that picture?"
"So let me get this straight: You tell people they've got STDs? That's your job, dude?"
"I'm glad you're the good guys, and I want to help. It's not just my rent situation, you know. I have to live with that thing on the wall."
"Let's get something straight, Cal. I am not your baby!"
"I could still smell the jasmine fragrance in the air, the scent of her anger, and traces of her skin oil and sweat on my fingers."
"You can’t fault lousy loyalty, though. Human lice have been with us for five million years, since our ancestors split off from chimpanzees."
"Evolution marches on. Maybe one day we’ll have space suit lice."
"One thing about carrying the parasite—it makes you feel connected to the past."
"Most parasites leap to humanity from other species."
"History. Nature. Weather. My head was pounding, full of those big, abstract words that have their own cable channels."
"The asphalt is there for a very good reason—to put something solid between you and the things that live underneath."
"Survival of the fittest, which in this case were the nonscratchiest."
"This isn’t an acute situation. It’s chronic."
"There’s no point in making it public, Lace. The disease is very rare; there’s only a serious outbreak every few decades. Nobody tries to get bitten by a rat, after all."
"Most people don’t know jack about science. They don’t believe in evolution because it makes them uncomfortable. Or they think AIDS is a curse sent down from God."
"Well, some fears go farther back than science, deeper than rational thought. You can find peep legends in almost every culture on the globe; certain of the parasite’s symptoms lend themselves to scary stories."
"Peeps are light-fearing, disease-carrying cannibals who revel in blood."
"Yeah, peeps are vampires. Or zombies in Haiti, or tengu in Japan, or nian in China. But like I said, we prefer the term parasite-positive."
"The disease sits under us like a burned-down campfire, Lace, and all it needs is for a few idiots to start stirring the embers."
"Wow, all the discomfort of a one-night stand, with none of the sex."
"Wolbachia is tiny, smaller than a single cell, but its powers are enormous. It can change its hosts genetically, tamper with their unborn children, and create whole new species of carriers . . . whatever it takes to fill the world with wolbachia."
"There’s someone up there?" one of the men asked, rising to his feet.
"You’re a carrier, and you didn’t even tell me there was such a thing until tonight!"
"Having this disease means never telling anyone."
"The parasite’s spores are viable even in saliva, and they’re small enough to penetrate latex. Any kind of sex is dangerous, Lace."
"And you didn’t think this would be important to me?"
"Christ, Cal! Because I thought we had something."
"Practically everything wasn’t enough, Cal," she said. "You should have told me."
"The world is changing, Cal. And one must adapt."
"I've been putting on some weight, actually," she said, shrugging and taking a huge bite of the hamburger in front of her.
"It suits you," I said. "Makes you look more . . . human?"
"A predator’s kiss: endless, insistent, and my first in six long months."
"Flowers imitate insects—patterning their petals after wings, stealing their smells."
"Sometimes nature could be quite sweet, really, as delicate as a confused and horny butterfly."
"So deal with it. Hey, at least they’re mostly too small to see, and that’s better than, you know, lions eating you."
"Just don’t pee in tropical rivers. Really. Just don’t."