The Twelve (The Passage, #2)

by Justin Cronin

What had truly imprisoned them was one another. Husbands and wives, parents and children, friends and companions: what they believed had given them strength in their lives had actually done the opposite.

Love had sealed their doom. Which was what love did.

I did what I thought was right in the moment. In the end, that’s all a man has to measure his life, and it’s plenty.”

As long as we remember a person, they’re not really gone. Their thoughts, their feelings, their memories, they become a part of us. And even if you think you don’t remember your parents, you do. They’re inside you, the same way they’re inside me.”

the last tears of her life had fallen; there were no more left inside her. How strange, not to be able to cry.

They’re the freest things on earth. Without remorse. Without pity. Without love. Nothing can touch them, hurt them. Imagine what that would be like, Lawrence. The absolute freedom of it. Imagine how wonderful that would be.”

Her family: after all that had happened, how remarkable these two words were. They seemed the most miraculous in the history of human speech.