Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits (Zoey Ashe, #1)

by Jason Pargin

Zoey didn’t want to be paranoid, but there was something about the man in the loincloth made of charred doll heads that made her nervous.

“At your age, life is full of possibilities. But as the years pass, those possibilities vanish, one by one, like doors closing in a hallway. You feel time slip by, and your energy slip away. One day, you realize you’re too old to be a famous musician, or change careers, or have more children. And each of those closed doors represents a regret. As you get older, well, those regrets come to define you.

“So why do we call her crazy for piling her trailer full of more cats than she could take care of but applaud when somebody accumulates more money than they can spend? They’re both hoarders.”

“You couldn’t have known this, but in this part of the world it’s considered a grave insult to set a man’s pecker on fire.”

“A clean conscience is expensive, it’s the reason most men have to live paycheck to paycheck.”

But seriously, listen up because this is important and this is where we’ll leave it. Your boy, my guess is he never stopped thinkin’ you were beautiful. The only thing that changed was he started worrying that other people didn’t think you were. So now he’s gonna spend his life with a gorgeous, boring woman who’ll make him miserable, all so that he can wear her on his arm to parties, thinkin’ that’ll show other people how great he is. He’ll pick the career and car and mansion that he thinks other people expect him to have, put all his energy into building up that front. Then one day he’ll find out his life is all wrapping paper and no gift.”

In the real world, bullets that miss their targets keep traveling until they hit something. They fly through windows, and into the bodies of bystanders. And even successfully killing a bad guy creates blowback, sets off a whole chain of consequences that are impossible to predict. Guns always represent a failure of negotiation.”

The market is a machine, if any man is so foolish as to try to stop the works from turning, he should not be surprised when he gets ground up in its gears.

Remember, the most powerful impression a person can make is that they don’t care if they make an impression.

Ultimately, Zoey, you’ll find that we all get what we want. Regardless of whether or not we like it when we get it.”

People like me know that there is no magic. There is only the grind. Work looks like magic to those unwilling to do it.”

There is no ‘chosen one,’ there is no destiny, nobody wakes up one day and finds out they’re amazing at something. There’s just slamming your head into the wall, refusing to take no for an answer. Being relentless, until either the wall or your head breaks. You want to be a hero? You don’t have to make some grand decision. There’s no inspirational music, there’s no montage. You just don’t quit.”

You’ll know that humans aren’t cut out for anything. We cut ourselves out. Slowly, with a rusty knife. Because otherwise, here’s what’s going to happen: you’re going to die and you’re going to stand at the gates of judgment and you’re going to ask God what was the meaning of it all, and God will say, ‘I created the universe, you little shit. It was up to you to give it meaning.’”

find out what the enemy is most afraid of, and you’ll also find what they’re the most eager to believe.”

“You can’t focus on death, or failure. Otherwise you’re surrendering greatness to all the people too dumb to contemplate it.”

“This is why people get obsessed with the apocalypse. They want the world to die with them. We’re all selfish, we hate the thought of everyone just … moving on.”