Shift Quotes

“When there’s only God to blame, we forgive him. When it’s our fellow man, we destroy him.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“It was the hubris of each generation to think this anew, to think that their time was special, that all things would come to an end with them.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“Predict the inevitable”, she said, “and you're bound to be right one day.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“His discovery was that evil men arose from evil systems, and that any man had the potential to be perverted. Which was why some systems needed to come to an end.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“And how much simpler things would be, how much better for us all, if we had people brave enough to do what was right, instead.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“All it took was for a lot of seemingly decent people to put the wrong person in power, and then pay for their innocent choice.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“It explains the great quandary of why the most depressed societies are those with the fewest wants.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“Here’s what I tell the newly elected: the truth is gonna get out—it always does—but it’s gonna blend in with all the lies.” The Senator twirled a hand in the air. “You have to deny each lie and every truth with the same vinegar. Let those websites and blowhards who bitch about cover-ups confuse the public for you.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“Donald was verging on the sad realization that humanity had been thrown to the brink of extinction by insane men in positions of power following one another, each thinking the others knew where they were going.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“Hello, pineapples,’ he whispered. He bent his head toward his lap and punctured the can, listening closely. The pineapples whispered back. They told him they were safe to eat.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“Liars and dead men – two parties unskilled at dispensing the truth.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“And then there was the routine, the mind-numbing routine. It was the castration of thought, the daily grind of an office worker who drooled at the clock, punched out, watched TV until sleep overtook him, slapped an alarm three times, did it again.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“Statistics were magic like this: they could tell you with near-certainty that a thing would occur, without a hint of when or where.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“The stench of his own waste greeted him as he moved between the tall towers. That wasn't how you were supposed to greet someone, he thought.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“of madmen who remained in charge simply because no one would challenge them.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“what it meant to do the right thing rather than the correct thing, what the difference was.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“The food in Silo One came from cans. Their bodies returned to the same.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“There was no planning for insanity. With enough revolutions and elections, enough transfers of power, eventually a madman would take the reins.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“Donald remembered running for Congress, thinking he was going to do real good for the future. And then he found himself in an office surrounded by a bewildering tempest of rules, memos and messages, and he quickly learned just to pray for the end of each day. He went from thinking he was going to save the world to passing the time until … until time ran out.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“This was how the shift was supposed to go. Waiting and then doing. Sleeping and then waiting. Make it to dinner and then make it to bed. The end was always in sight. There was nothing to rebel against, just a routine.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“His response was that it was a burden doing what he knew to be correct, to be sound and logical.’ Erskine ran one hand across the pod as if he could touch his daughter within. ‘And how much simpler things would be, how much better for us all, if we had people brave enough to do what was right, instead.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“Hush my Darling, don’t you cry I’m going to sing you a lullaby Though I’m far away it seems I’ll be with you in your dreams. Hush my Darling, go to sleep All around you angels keep In the morn and through the day They will keep your fears at bay. Sleep my Darling, don’t you cry I’m going to sing you a lullaby”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“He turned the coin over and over and contemplated the only thing unusual about him holding a trinket from a world fallen to ashes - and that was him being around to marvel at the loss. It was supposed to be people who died and cultures that lasted. Now, it was the other way around;”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“You'll be given a commendation in my report."
"Thank you," Troy said. He didn't know what the fuck for.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“At almost the same moment in humanity's broad history, mankind had discovered the means for bringing about its utter downfall. And the ability to forget it ever happened.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“Isn’t that what people did? Saw in others what they feared to see or hoped to see in themselves?”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“This project of theirs was about resetting life.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“Denial is the secret sauce in this town,’ he said. ‘It’s the flavor that holds all the other ingredients together. Here’s what I tell the newly elected: the truth is going to get out – it always does – but it’s going to blend in with all the lies.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“Some things you found just when you needed them, and Solo thought of the years that had passed so swiftly with his friend.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“Locomotive, Jimmy read. He knew these words. The first part meant ‘crazy’. The second part was a person’s reason for doing something.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift