De Novo Syndrome Quotes

“Eleven years ago he retired from life. Death was never really his style.”
― Jim Buckner, De Novo Syndrome

“It had begun to feel odd being in the all together, and the lab coat had only made me feel like a wrinkly old pervert.”
― Jim Buckner, De Novo Syndrome

“My father and I had both underestimated humanity’s appetite for destruction—the basic human willingness to allow harm to befall others for selfish gain.”
― Jim Buckner, De Novo Syndrome

“I could think of no productive means to resist a voice in one’s own head, so I didn’t try.”
― Jim Buckner, De Novo Syndrome

“We are not like other men, men with small minds gobbled up by avarice and superstition. Oppressors to take life from men who struggle to live. False gods to satisfy human hunger they are becoming.”
― Jim Buckner, De Novo Syndrome

“Even if it were possible that life without emotion could be more authentic, who would care if caring itself was a false construct? My life’s work had been dedicated to extending life, but nothing within my power could make that life worth living.”
― Jim Buckner, De Novo Syndrome

“If there was a god, a capital ‘g’ god, I wondered if he was paying attention. Did he monitor the universe like a security guard stationed at a bank of screens with a book and a cup of coffee? Or did he feel every ripple like it was a part of him? Did he grieve? Or were emotions an evolutionary gimmick, a cruel sleight of hand we humans played on ourselves?”
― Jim Buckner, De Novo Syndrome

“My truck still functioned, but would no doubt attract police like fat Southerners to a Waffle House.”
― Jim Buckner, De Novo Syndrome

“My father and grandfather believed in loyalty above all else. But not loyalty to country. Rather loyalty to doing what’s right, even if impossible.” We shared a smile over the similarities between our fathers. “Nothing like taking up the torch of the foolishly perfect.”
― Jim Buckner, De Novo Syndrome

“I see a father scared out of his wits. I see a man accustomed to following and giving orders, sure. But nothing in his training had equipped him for raising a little girl. And you know what, no one ever shook his hand to congratulate him with a job well done or to let him know the mission had been accomplished. No. Somehow, quietly, without him noticing, his job had just ended. His girl had grown into a woman. And the job he’d never known how to do, the job he’d screwed up in innumerable ways had miraculously become his proudest accomplishment. And yet he couldn’t shake the feeling he hadn’t done a God-blessed thing.”
― Jim Buckner, De Novo Syndrome

“We were exposed. The dark lapped against us like surf on the beach.”
― Jim Buckner, De Novo Syndrome

“I tried to shake off my paranoia. But for weeks I’d been stirring it into my morning coffee.”
― Jim Buckner, De Novo Syndrome

“In the twitcher’s place stood a man—a man so wrinkled his flesh looked cut and stacked, layer upon layer, and finally stitched together with catgut or fishing twine.”
― Jim Buckner, De Novo Syndrome