The Ruins Quotes

“Stacy wasn't certain; she'd never bothered to pay attention to details like that, and was always regretting it, the half knowing, which felt worse than not knowing at all, the constant sense that she had things partly right, but not right enough to make a difference.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“Maybe there isn’t a way,” he said. “Maybe all we can do is wait and hope and endure for as long as we’re able. The food will run out. Our bodies will fail. And the vine will do whatever it’s going to do.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“Trying to remember things.” It was what people did, Amy had decided, as they waited for death; they lay there struggling to remember the details of their lives, all the events that had seemed so impossible to forget while they were being suffered through, the things tasted and smelled and heard, the thoughts that had felt like revelations, and now Jeff was doing this, too. He’d given up. They weren’t going to survive this place; they were going to end just like Henrich, shot full of arrows, the vines coiling and flowering around their bones.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“It waits till we’re weak before it reveals its strength.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“That was what they were so clearly doing here: they were waiting. And not in any suspense, either, not in any anxiety as to the outcome of their vigil. They were waiting with no apparent emotion at all, as one might sit over the course of an evening, watching a candle methodically burn itself into darkness, never less than certain of the outcome, confident that the only thing standing between now and the end of waiting was time itself.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“The miserable misery of the miser,”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“If you’re not careful, you can reach a point where you’ve made choices without thinking. Without planning. You can end up not living the life you’d meant to. Maybe one you deserve, but not one you intended.” Here he wagged his finger again. “Make sure you think,” he said. “Make sure you plan.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“Stacy waited till she was certain he’d fallen asleep, then slipped free of his grasp, edging backward, leaving his hand lying open on the tent’s floor, palm up, slightly cupped, like a beggar’s. She imagined dropping a coin into it, late at night on some dark city street; she pictured herself hurrying off, never to see him again.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“he’d believed that he was smarter and more disciplined than the others, and that these traits alone might save them. He was a fool, though; he could see that now. He’d been a fool to cut off Pablo’s legs. All he’d managed to do was prolong the Greek’s suffering. And he’d been a fool—worse than a fool, so much worse—to sit there pouting while, fifteen feet away from him, Amy had choked to death. Even if, through some miracle, he managed to leave this place alive, he couldn’t see how he’d ever be able to survive that memory.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“all the lies people utter around death in order to comfort themselves, to bury their grief with the body, but here, suddenly, they were true. Die, Eric said in his head. Do it now, just die. And all the while—yes, implacably, inexorably—the Greek’s breathing continued its ragged course.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“They all stood there, staring, shading their eyes against the sunlight. It was a beautiful sight: a hill shaped like a giant breast, covered in red flowers.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“It also seemed possible that they were trading the names around, that this was part of the joke, so the one who answered to Pablo on Tuesday would smilingly insist on Wednesday that he was Juan.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“They both knew who she was, how she’d rather be with the group, doing something she didn’t like, than alone, doing something she enjoyed.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“I don’t want to die here.’
Mathias gave him half a smile. 'I don’t want to die anywhere.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“There were so many rules to remember. No wonder people ended up in places they’d never chosen to be.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“By this time tomorrow, they’d all be saved. No one was going to have to drink any urine, any dew.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“She and Stacy both turned from Eric to smile at Jeff, as if taunting him. He didn’t respond—what was the point? Clearly, it had already been decided: they were going to the village. Pablo finally stopped talking; Mathias was putting the cap back on the water bottle. Jeff shouldered his pack. “Shall we?” he said.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“It will be whatever it is, no? Nothing, something—our believing one thing or another will matter not at all in the end.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“The Greek pissed and pissed and pissed.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“liar’s smile”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“He grasped a stalk, tugged, pulled it free, glimpsed a tennis shoe, a sock, the lower part of a man’s shin.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“But Jeff was staring at the vines, the isolated island, knowing already what it was, knowing it deep, without quite being conscious of this knowledge.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“A tree on her left seemed to call her name. Stacy, it whispered, so clearly that she actually turned her head, a goose-bump feeling running up and down her back. Behind her came another rustling voice: Are you lost? And then she was stepping with the others into sunlight.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“He didn’t want her to be thinking about this: the boy riding off, the camouflaged path. It would only frighten her, and she became obstinate and skittish when she was frightened, which wasn’t a particularly helpful combination.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“It had been Mathias who noticed the palm fronds;”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“Apparently, he had a fear of snakes.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“they were on their way”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“the only threats Stacy had with which to entertain herself were the ones she could think up on her own.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“There was so much to contest in this that she felt something like panic in the face of it, a buzzing sensation rising in her head.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“I don't want to die anywhere. But I guess I will, even so, won't I?”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins