Afterparty Quotes

“Love at first sight is a myth, but thundering sexual attraction at first sight is hard science.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“Look, you can't think of a person like it's one thing, one 'I' that decides everything. The brain is a collective, a huge number of all these thinking modules. It doesn't make a decision, it arrives at one.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“Just curious? That's a bullshit phrase.”
“It's a simple question. How long—”
“No, it's a signal that bullshit is about to follow. It's the hat that bullshit puts on before it goes out to get the paper.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“The human egg is a Mrs. Bennet, desperate to marry off her daughters...It is a truth universally acknowledged that a sperm must be in want of a matching strand of DNA.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“The brain is a collective, a huge number of all these thinking modules. It doesn’t make a decision, it arrives at one.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“I’ve always been a sucker for the beautiful and the batshit.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“The rabbit is already in the hat. Do not clap for fucking Tinkerbell. Believe nothing.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“A BS in any neuroscience without a master's or PhD was a three-legged dog of a degree: pitiable, adorable, and capable of inspiring applause when it did anything for you at all.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“There was as much joy in surrendering free will as exercising it.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“Everyone develops a tolerance to happiness.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“Fayza leaned in, squinting, as if she didn’t hear me correctly: one of the library of power moves that adults used to signal that other adults were fucking idiots.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“There was a scientist who did not believe in gods or fairies or supernatural creatures of any sort. But she had once known an angel, and had talked to her every day.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“Rovil frowned and looked past me. "I'm sorry about that. Ilsa and I once...never mind. Are you ready to leave?"

"I'm drunk, I'm in New York, and it's three a.m.," I said. "I need a fucking slice.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“I'm looking for something," I said. "Got a minute?"

"Amphetamines? Oxy? I think I have all your favorite ingredients."

"Something special," I said. "Can we talk somewhere without all these..."

"Genitalia?" Dr. G asked.

"...distractions?" I said.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“So this made-up religion--"
"I didn't say made-up. I said brand new. 'Made-up religion' is redundant.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“Detroit, the kookiest damn city he’d ever visited. It was the first time he’d seen abandoned homes and decrepit skyscrapers alongside acres of fresh farmland, all part of some inner-city rejuvenation project to turn the industrial revolution inside out. Hell, maybe even white people would come back to the city.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“hyperentrepreneurs that make even hardcore capitalists nervous.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“God gets the easiest performance reviews.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“Even peasants can build a cathedral.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“The rhythm of breath may have been our first language.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“The doctor unfurled her wings into Maximum Righteousness Mode. The flaming sword was in her hand. She pointed with it like the archangel casting us out of the garden. “Get your ass back there!”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“Rogue factories on the other side of the border, most of them also on Native American reservations, pumped out millions of cheap, untaxed, generic cigarettes a year. You couldn’t blame the Indians. We took their land; they were giving us cancer.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“He twirled a finger, the universal symbol for roll down your window -- universal despite the fact that no one had manually rolled down a window in twenty years.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“I will admit to fucking a zucchini when I was in high school. For years I thought I was a vegesexual.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“startled awake. Ollie froze for a moment, staring in his direction. The kid scrunched his face and yawned like a bear. I said to Ollie, “It’s still Bobby.” “Right,” she said. She unzipped the bag. There was no lock on the zipper, not even the tiny padlocks they”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“I need that printer,” I said. “And the precursor”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty

“As I sat there in the pew during the altar call, I suddenly understood that if I didn’t surrender to Him I would go to Hell when I died. It wasn’t Hell itself that scared me—or not just Hell. It was the idea that my mother was going to Heaven without me.”
― Daryl Gregory, Afterparty