Wither Quotes
"We sleep huddled together like rats, staring out, and dream of our bodies swaying."
"We’ve gone too long without speaking, and all we do is bury ourselves more into the dark."
"The light is frightening. It’s the light of the world through the birth canal."
"Girls who don’t pass their inspection are shipped to a brothel in the scarlet districts."
"Our hips are measured to determine strength, our lips pried apart so the men can judge our health by our teeth."
"I feel too alive in this row of moribund girls with their eyes half open."
"His eyes green, like two exclamation marks, meet mine."
"The world is bright green and blue beyond it, brighter than my home."
"Seventy years ago science perfected the art of children."
"Most of that generation is still alive, approaching old age gracefully."
"They purchase brides from Gatherers, who patrol the streets looking for ideal candidates to kidnap."
"But our parents’ death broke his sense of wonder."
"The wallpaper is made up of vertical vines budding roses, and they remind me of the bars of a prison cell."
"They, like humanity, are chemical replicas of what they should be."
"I avoid my reflection in the dressing table mirror, afraid I’ll lose my mind if I see myself in this place."
"But instead of tears, when I press my face against the pillow, a horrible, primal scream comes out of me."
"For males twenty-five is the fatal age. For women it’s twenty."
"We would string paper cups across the divide and talk to each other in giggles."
"My brother, who once had dreams of saving the world, now laughs at anyone who tries."
"I hurry to my feet, toward the door, but the basin woman doesn’t even notice me."
"I tear off the nightgown and use the clean parts of it to scrub the blood from my skin."
"Frilly, pretty things have no place in windows. Not where I come from."
"But I will not be hypnotized by the wonder of these small things."
"I still feel as though bubbles are popping against my skin."
"I haven’t heard of teenage boys disappearing, but up until fifty years ago, when the virus was discovered, girls were also safe."
"The room is fully furnished, as though it’s been waiting for my arrival."
"The grass is mowed into strips of green and deeper green."
"Other than my mother’s flowers, there are those wilting carnations that shopkeepers sell in the city."
"Maybe I can find an exit by squeezing through a hedge or scaling a fence."
"I have always been fascinated by the ocean, to dip a limb beneath its surface and know that I’m touching eternity, that it goes on forever until it begins here again."
"It’s been so hard to keep track of the days in this mansion, when they all look the same, when I’m nothing more than Linden’s prisoner."
"It’s not him I’m worried about," she says. "It’s Housemaster Vaughn."
"What are you thinking?" he asks me. "I was wondering if we’re worth saving," I say.
"It will be the very coldest day in hell before Linden Ashby has his way with me, all right?"
"You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, you know."
"This isn’t the worst place to die," she confesses.
"I’ve asked myself the same question," he says.
"I would not have imagined that he had this kind of energy. This kind of deftness and talent."
"I want to trust him. I’m in his house-building hands, and I want to trust him."
"You don’t understand what he’s like when he doesn’t get his way."
"You’re bringing Linden out of the darkness that Rose left him with, don’t you see that?"
"It’s such a nice cool day. The air is refreshing on these old lungs of mine."
"My son is going to have a healthy lifespan. And so are his wives."
"You’ll have everything you can dream of for years and years."
"What has the free world got that you can’t get here?"
"Make that boy happy, and he’ll give you the world on a string."
"I’m supposed to go somewhere. This is me fighting for my life."
"I'm just tired and lost, and I don't know if I'll ever truly be able to escape."
"Skip to the last page, then. I’m not made of time."
"Just being alive feels so arduous that all I want to do is climb under the covers and sleep."
"Get up, he said. They’re dead. We’re alive. We have things to do."
"It’s like her body is rotting from the inside out."
"By late afternoon, Linden is concerned enough to check on us."
"We’re in the Gatherers’ van all over again, recoiling into the darkness, wanting to disappear in the safety of one another."
"I want to be away from here. I want to escape now."
"Don’t forget how you got here. Don’t forget."
"Just keep her here, okay? It’s the only place you’ll always be able to find her."
"We are just a servant and an unwilling bride who haven’t been granted one moment of true freedom to explore how we feel about each other."
"We’re traveling up the coastline, and the wind has picked up."
"This time, I don’t know where the light will guide us."