The Last Book in the Universe Quotes

“The only real treasure is in your head. Memories are better than diamonds and nobody can steal them from you”
― Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe

“Bean finds the best apple in our tree and hands it up to me. "You know what this tastes like when you first bite into it?" she asks.
"No, what?"
"Blue sky."
"You're zoomed."
"You ever eat blue sky?"
"No," I admit.
"Try it sometime," she says. "It's apple-flavored.”
― Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe

“Do not despair, my friend. Today is theirs, but the future is ours”
― Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe

“The future is like the moon. You never expect to go there, or think about what it might be like.”
― Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe

“I don't have any of the answers, son. Never did. All I can do is keep asking the questions. Keep trying to make sense of why people do what they do.”
― Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe

“I believe that we have the ability to change our lives using our imaginations. Imagination is a muscle—the more you use it, the stronger it gets.”
― Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe

“I used to belong to a family unit, with a foster mom and dad and my little sister, Bean, but that's over and I don't want to talk about what happened , or how unfair it was. Not yet. The less said about that the better, because if there's one thing I learned from Ryter it's that you can't always be looking backward or something will hit you from the front.”
― Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe

“I'm thinking maybe letting the latches burn is the right idea. Let everything burn until there's nothing left but ashes and cool rain.”
― Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe

“I know who the real hero is, and it isn't me or brave Lanaya. It's an old man with a white beard and a walking stick and a heart so big it won't let him stop thinking he can change the world by writing down things in a book no one will ever read.”
― Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe

“Shut up!" I say, holding my hands to my ears. "Shut up!"
But the stupid gummy won't shut up; he's trying to tell me something important even though I'm covering my ears and I don't want to hear it and I don't want to think about who I am or what's wrong with me or why I'm out here at the edge of the Urb, at the edge of the known world, listening to some old mope who's so crazy, he think about the future when everyone knows that the future doesn't exist.”
― Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe

“He's a feral child. No mother, no father, no one to care for him or raise him or teach him how to be human. So he's existed much like an animal, without language. He thinks in images, not word."
"How strange," Lanaya, sounding amazed.
Ryter shakes his head sadly. "Not strange, I'm afaraid. His condition is all too common in the latches. And becoming more common every day.”
― Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe

“Things never look better in the morning. How could they, when nothing ever changes?”
― Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe

“Do not despair, my friend. Today is theirs, but the future is ours.”
― Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe

“The three of us stand in the open hatch and look up at the sky. It's so blue and clear, it makes my eyes water. Then I realize my eyes are weeping because they've never seen anything this beautiful. I never thought about it before, but in the Urb the sky is so close that sometimes you think you could reach up and touch it. Here in Eden the blue goes up forever and you suddenly realize that the sky is much, much bigger than the earth below. And it's more than that: Seeing so far makes you know there's a world outside the world, and a sky beyond the sky.”
― Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe

“Until I saw what happened to Mongo, I thought that getting canceled was the worst thing that could happen. Wrong. Being dead and not knowing it is much, much worse.”
― Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe

“Take away memory—the sense of who we are—and human beings revert to animal behavior," Ryter says. "And animals are easier to exterminate than humans.”
― Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe

“I don't suppose anybody really knows how bad a thing can be until it actually happens.”
― Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe

“So what happens when proovs get old?" he asks, as if the subject is close to his heart. "They age gracefully," Lanaya says with a smile. "That's the best we can do.”
― Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe

“You can't hate a proov when you're near one, because you want to be like them, you ache to be like them. You want to be perfect, too, and you know if you were improved you'd act just like they do, and feel what they feel, and glide through the world with sky-colored eyes and hair like sunlight, and nothing dirty or broken could ever touch you.”
― Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe