Z For Zachariah Quotes
"I have hoped and prayed for someone to come."
"This man may be the only man left on the earth."
"It is just that I don’t know what the man will do."
"There never were any real services in the church, not in our time, anyway."
"He looked a lot younger, though still much older than I."
"Even in the last few feet, the small stream has life in it—minnows, tadpoles, water bugs (skippers), and green moss on the rocks."
"I thought I had become used to being alone, and to the idea that I would always be alone, but I was wrong."
"The truth is, I did not know enough to take care of him."
"It means I have radiation poisoning. Very bad."
"I lay there realizing that it was not true, but also realizing something else."
"I thought it better not to mention the cave."
"I suppose there is, but the pumps won’t work without electricity."
"I’ve just realized that after all this I still do not even know his name."
"Could it be possible that there were quail still in the valley? I could not believe it."
"The basket of green leaves suddenly seemed to be giving off a beautiful, sweet perfume."
"I thought, if I ever got married, apple blossoms were what I would like to have in the church."
"The idea of getting married seemed like quite an enormous step."
"It is incredible how good fresh green things can taste when you have not had any for months."
"You forget how noisy machines are after a year."
"The suit will stop radiation, but it won’t stop bullets."
"Sometimes he acts as if he thinks I am Edward, but more often he stares beyond me, as if I am not there at all."
"I sat in the front pew, where the light is best, and read the Bible for half an hour, and I prayed for Mr Loomis."
"Each time after that it was the same, but it did not stop."
"I kept the fire going and changed the hot water bottle every hour, putting it next to his feet."
"Morning finally came, and I made myself some breakfast and coffee; though I have no appetite I must eat."
"Reading the poem certainly made me feel less worried and confused."
"The day was cloudy, with a fresh, wet smell in the air."
"Today is my birthday. I am sixteen, and for dinner we had a roast chicken and a cake, both cooked in my new oven."
"He opened his eyes, looked at it, closed them and opened them again. He said: 'It seems like a miracle.'"
"He still does not wake up, but his respiration is down to eighteen per minute, almost normal, and his colour has changed from blue to white."
"I thought of them as rather like birds, with wings, flying upward, and when I saw a bird flying after I said my prayers I would think, maybe that was mine."
"So I picked it up, holding it as gently as I could in both hands. It did not struggle but sat there quite trustingly."
"But I had decided on teaching instead; it is also a job of helping people, though perhaps not as much as nursing."
"What I wonder is, what would happen if I could bring some of them here?"
"He opened his eyes this morning, but they were blank and unfocused, the eyes of a new-born animal."
"I realized that he probably did not even remember that, since he had been sick and delirious at the time."
"But there is no other, and no way, now, of making another."
"There is a telepathy that goes with such things."
"I am living in the cave again, and I am glad now that I never told Mr Loomis about it or where it was."
"I felt better down in the cornfield, driving the tractor and the spreader through the rows of new corn."
"I do not need to eat in bed any more," he said. "I am still weak, but not sick."
"The sound of a voice can be soothing; he had been mortally ill, and perhaps was still restless; surely he must be bored all through the day."
"I am in terrible trouble. Mr Loomis shot me."
"It seemed strained. I do not know exactly why. Churches, I suppose, must be associated with normalcy."
"But how could I clean it? Where and with what? I could not go into the kitchen. My only knife, except my pocketknife, was in the cave."
"At the pond, out of his sight, I put down the can and ran up the hill, staying safely in the woods on the far side of the stream."
"And tomorrow, remember to bring both sack and pail."
"I would give him half and store the other half in the cave, where it would not freeze."
"I stood there staring after him, feeling bewildered and baffled and stupid."
"The valley, which had been home and shelter for my whole life, seemed now to threaten me wherever I went, whatever I did."
"I have made a plan: I will steal the safe-suit and leave the valley."
"I could not just walk away from him, from this valley, from all that I hoped for, without a word."
"It was a kind of beauty that was strange to me, and although I was still in the valley, I began to feel that the journey had begun."