When We Were Real Quotes

“America, Marcus thinks, is made of bullets.”
― Daryl Gregory, When We Were Real

“Pain was just nerves firing, he said, the body firing off warning signals according to the rules of the simulation. Suffering was the awareness of that moment of pain—and the awareness that more of those moments were on the way. Suffering could occur even when you were feeling no physical pain. Suffering stretched into the past, all your pain remembered, and reached into the future to take in all the agony that lay ahead. He said that most people spend their lives in a deep pit, staring up into a cloudy sky. Even when the clouds clear and the light shines down they can’t enjoy it, because all they can think is, Gosh, I’m stuck in this pit.”
― Daryl Gregory, When We Were Real

“We can’t save ourselves,” she says. “But we can save the people who come after us.”
― Daryl Gregory, When We Were Real

“Yesterday is just information to help you decide how you want to live today.”
― Daryl Gregory, When We Were Real

“Maybe, she thinks, this is how men express their feelings for each other. Maybe they’re so emotionally constipated that quoting Batman is the only way they can say “I love you.”
― Daryl Gregory, When We Were Real

“The Sister’s first impression of Fort Lee, New Jersey, is that it’s indeed a fortress: palisades of rock and a wall of newly green trees defend the Garden State from the encroaching evil of New York. Her second impression, moments later, is that evil made it ashore long ago. Rectangular office buildings, shorter and more soul-sucking imitations of Manhattan’s, crowd around the interstate. It’s all cars and concrete and steel.”
― Daryl Gregory, When We Were Real

“If she shifts her weight the wrong way, her back will seize up in a blaze of pain, paralyzing her, and she won’t know which way to move that won’t cause more agony, as if she’s inside a box surrounded by knives, a magic trick gone wrong.”
― Daryl Gregory, When We Were Real

“enteric nervous system”
― Daryl Gregory, When We Were Real

“God forgives and Jesus saves, but the church never forgets.”
― Daryl Gregory, When We Were Real