The End of the World Quotes

“Fire or ice, one or the other—who knows? The final word on finality is yet to be written.”
― Martin H. Greenberg, The End of the World: Stories of the Apocalypse

“The Norse myths give us a terrible frost, and in the Fimbulwinter, all living things die except a man and a woman who survive by hiding in a tree.”
― Martin H. Greenberg, The End of the World: Stories of the Apocalypse

“He hates moving so much that once he gets set on it, he will keep on and not stop—like it isn’t the moving he hates so much at all, but the starting and stopping.”
― Martin H. Greenberg, The End of the World: Stories of the Apocalypse

“Deterrence is a sound strategy but a terrible drain on the men of the deterrent forces—a drain exacerbated in the past by the negative attitude of our countrymen toward our mission. Men who, in the service of their country, polish their skills to a razor edge and then must refrain from exercising them have a right to resent being treated as pariahs.”
― Martin H. Greenberg, The End of the World: Stories of the Apocalypse

“Being unconcerned with ends, the military mind can be easily manipulated, easily controlled, and easily confused. Ends are defined as those goals set by civilian authority. Ends are the conceded province of civilians; means are the province of the military, whose duty it is to achieve the ends set for it by the most advantageous applications of the means at its command.”
― Martin H. Greenberg, The End of the World: Stories of the Apocalypse

“There are words that do things to people; words that make people’s faces flush with joy, excitement, or passion. Environmental can be one, occult is another. Wholesale was Peter’s. He leaned back in his chair. “Tell me about it,” he said, with the practiced assurance of an experienced shopper.”
― Martin H. Greenberg, The End of the World: Stories of the Apocalypse

“If he was different from other men, it was only that he had a deeper awareness of the principles on which his personality was founded.”
― Martin H. Greenberg, The End of the World: Stories of the Apocalypse

“You must find the way out. It is a way not of directions or trails, but of events.”
― Martin H. Greenberg, The End of the World: Stories of the Apocalypse

“It was not really flying, he realized; rather, it was as if the forest were painted on a piece of paper, as if someone were holding a lit match behind it and burning a hole, a hole that maintained the shape of a bird as it spread.”
― Martin H. Greenberg, The End of the World: Stories of the Apocalypse

“The vague shapes of the foliage reminded Dantzler of fancifully engraved letters, and for a while he entertained himself with the notion that they were walking among the half-formed phrases of a constitution not yet manifest in the land.”
― Martin H. Greenberg, The End of the World: Stories of the Apocalypse

“He done found someplace inside his head that feel good to him,” said DT. “He’s tryin’ to curl up into it, and once he do that he ain’t gon’ be responsible. Keep an eye on him.”
― Martin H. Greenberg, The End of the World: Stories of the Apocalypse

“gas. It’s the same always with a lazy man like that. He hates moving so much that once he gets set on it, he will keep on and not stop—like it isn’t the moving he hates so much at all, but the starting and stopping. And once moving, he is so proud he’ll do whatever to make it look easy for him but hard on the others, so he can lord it over them later. So I wasn’t surprised at all when we went out and got in the car, and Bud starts the truck and drives off real careful, and Turkey, he sits in the back of the Pontiac and gives directions like he knows the way. Which riles Mr. Ackerman, and the two of them have words. JOHNNY”
― Martin H. Greenberg, The End of the World: Stories of the Apocalypse