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Plague Quotes
Plague
by
Jean Ure410 ratings, 3.62 average rating, 45 reviews
Plague Quotes
Showing 1-30 of 36
“Right! You’ve said it . . . that’s what we elect governments for. To save ourselves the trouble of having to think. Well, we got what was coming to us! You duck out of all responsibility, you forfeit all right to scream when the balloon goes up . . . we’re like a load of kids! Silly little kids, playing in our playpens, while out there the psychopaths lay trails of dynamite and run around with lighted matches telling us it’s all as safe as houses and all for our own good, and still we say, oh, we must have leaders! There’s got to be someone in charge, someone to make the decisions, we can’t do it! In any other circumstances that would be labelled immaturity. We sit here and call it democracy!”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“He said that there was no reason to suppose that good would come out of evil: society couldn’t be expected to mature overnight just because there had been a catastrophe. In fact, probably just the opposite would happen. He said that when there were shortages people always fought and became aggressive.”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“I keep thinking what a lot I missed out on through being so introverted. I am not referring to sex but all the other things. Being sociable, I suppose.)”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“If one knew there would be enough then one wouldn’t grab. That was another thing that was bad about the way we used to be. It was all grab grab grab while one could in case tomorrow one couldn’t.)”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“But basing a whole philosophy of life on what you would do in extremis does not seem to me to be right.”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“It is true, I do expect bad things rather than good, and even when they are good I worry about when they will stop being good.”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“I have discovered that writing is rather like talking: it is very difficult to start, but once you have actually got going it can also be very difficult to stop. The reason I don’t want to stop is that I am scared of being on my own. At least when I’m writing this journal it’s like conversing with someone.”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“It is very difficult, when there are those people who want power over other people and will stop at nothing to get it: it is very difficult for all the people who don’t want power, except just power over themselves, to find a way of resisting it.”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“(I don’t believe that dreams tell what is to come, I think they are the things that are going on in our subconscious swimming to the surface while we are asleep.)”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“I am not at all the sort of girl he would normally go out with. But maybe now there is not so much choice—well, anyway. We shall see.”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“I’ve noticed that in films about holocausts and disasters and such it’s always a young girl and an old man, right at the end, who have to get together for the sake of the future. I don’t think I could do that, not with an old man, though maybe I could if it was all there was.”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“I almost wish that anyone were here, so I could just talk about anything. I know Harry used to accuse me of being anti-social (because of my not liking parties and shutting myself away painting), but it is a very dreadful and isolating experience not to have exchanged one single word with another human being for as long as I have.”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“It’s our job to look at the issues and elect people. Once we’ve done that, that’s our part over with. It’s not up to us to run the country.”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“Mum used to say one shouldn’t wish one’s life away, but she could never have imagined anything like this.”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“It seems so silly, everyone avoiding everyone. We are all just terrified, I suppose. But what is it that we are terrified of? Are we terrified of catching the disease or are we terrified of being knifed or strangled?”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“They were people—having fun.’ ‘They’d have had fun with us if they’d’ve caught us,”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“It’s all men’s fault,’ she said, ‘anyway. It would never have happened if it had been left to women.’ ‘If it had been left to women we’d probably still be living in the Stone Age!”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“You could never be sure, at any given moment, whether she was inhabiting her own private fantasy land—which she seemed to do most of the time—or whether she was on one of her flying visits to what passed for reality.”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“Someone enjoying a good perve, no doubt. Well, and why not? There wasn’t much else to enjoy, these days.”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“There are black people in Brixton!’ Fran’s face grew crimson. Shahid said, ‘What’s the matter with black people?’ ‘They’ll beat us up!’ ‘Oh,’ said Shahid. ‘Really?’ Fran, looking uncomfortable, said, ‘Don’t be silly, Harry! That was race riots, years ago.’ ‘I don’t care! I don’t like it. I’m not going there.”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“I know that almost all of my family are dead: I know that most of the people I have ever known are dead: I know that society has ceased to function . . . no hospitals, no doctors, no police . . . no transport, no broadcasting . . . no newspapers . . . no heating, no lighting . . . even in wartime, that doesn’t happen. But it’s happened now. This time they’ve really done it. So don’t ask me what I know! I know what you know, and if you don’t know it’s the end—”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“One had to be prepared for the thought that the world might actually be approaching Armageddon.”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“This business is only at the beginning. It’s going to get a whole lot worse before it gets any better.’ If it ever did get any better, which privately he doubted. ‘There’s going to be a shortage of food, for a start. And when there’s a shortage of food, people get desperate. And when people get desperate, they get nasty. Like that gang of little kids—except that it won’t always be little kids. One day it’ll be big kids. And then what are you going to do?”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“What would it have mattered? What does any of it matter? You don’t have to look at me like that! I’m not mad! I know what’s going on . . . we’d all of us be better dead!’ There was a long silence; then Shahid, grimly, said: ‘I expect, very soon, we all shall be.”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
“You never knew when condoms might come in handy . . . you could blow them up like balloons and tie messages to them, or fill them with water, or roll them on to your fingers and use them as fingerstalls. He didn’t really foresee any possibility of their being put to the purpose for which they were intended.”
― Plague 99
― Plague 99
