A Better World Quotes

“Worry is a misuse of the imagination”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“Freedom is not a couch. It’s not a television, or a car, or a house. It’s not an item you can possess. You cannot put freedom on layaway; you cannot refinance freedom. Freedom is something you need to fight for, not once, but every single day. The nature of freedom is that it is fluid; like water in a leaking bucket, the tendency is for it to drain away. Left untended, the holes through which freedom escapes widen. When politicians restrict our rights in order to “protect us,” freedom is lost. When the military refuses to disclose basic facts, freedom is lost. Worst of all, when fear becomes a part of our lives, we willingly surrender freedom for a promise of safety, as if freedom weren’t the very basis of safety.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“You want to change the world? Forget politics. Learn to code.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“No, the great thing about the truth is that it’s true.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“We are never more clever than in the creation of ways to destroy ourselves.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“Funny, there had been a time when building things was what America did. From massive dams to towering skyscrapers, from mechanized factories to moon rockets, the nation had created, had viewed that as part of the national identity. Being an engineer or an architect had once been high aspirations. Now everybody wanted to be musicians and basketball players, and America didn’t build squat.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“Revolution? You’re an idiot. You don’t even know what that word means. Forget your precious Mao and Che and Fidel. If they’ve appeared on a T-shirt, they haven’t changed shit. You want revolution, look at Alexander Fleming. Penicillin transformed the world in ways Lenin and Washington only dreamt of. Now sit down and shut up, you autocratic frat boy. It’s adult swim.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“Frightened people want action more than they want correct action. It’s in the data.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“He never realized how noisy American silence was until all the gadgets died.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“Funny, there had been a time when building things was what America did. From massive dams to towering skyscrapers, from mechanized factories to moon rockets, the nation had created, had viewed that as part of the national identity.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“First they came for the revolutionaries, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a revolutionary. Then they came for the intellectuals, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t an intellectual. Then they came for the tier ones, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a tier one. Then they came for the brilliants, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a brilliant. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“The truth was, everything in life came down to intentions and results. Cooper’s intentions in killing Peters and releasing the video had been good; the results had been a disaster. Did that make his intentions wrong? If so, that meant morality was really only a way of talking about how we wished things were. Hope, empathy, idealism—maybe they didn’t matter. Maybe the only thing that counted was results.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“you are going to find that the heights you’ve attained make for a long fall if you don’t understand the mountain.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“Here’s the thing about freedom: Freedom is not a couch. It’s not a television, or a car, or a house. It’s not an item you can possess. You cannot put freedom on layaway; you cannot refinance freedom. Freedom is something you need to fight for, not once, but every single day. The nature of freedom is that it is fluid; like water in a leaking bucket, the tendency is for it to drain away. Left untended, the holes through which freedom escapes widen. When politicians restrict our rights in order to “protect us,” freedom is lost. When the military refuses to disclose basic facts, freedom is lost. Worst of all, when fear becomes a part of our lives, we willingly surrender freedom for a promise of safety, as if freedom weren’t the very basis of safety.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“Funny, there had been a time when building things was what America did. From massive dams to towering skyscrapers, from mechanized factories to moon rockets, the nation had created, had viewed that as part of the national identity. Being an engineer or an architect had once been high aspirations.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“Cooper said nothing. “Jesus.” Quinn rubbed at his eyes. “Wait. How does this get him what he wants? Things are worse now for abnorms than ever before. The microchipping, the hate crimes, hell, every third congressman holding press conferences to say we need to lock you all up.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“Though now the secretary of defense, Owen Leahy had come up through intelligence, and it showed. His posture suggested that not only would he not comment on the quality of the morning, he would neither confirm nor deny that it was in fact the a.m. There weren’t many people who gave off so little to Cooper’s eyes.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“Cold liquid splashing across his face brought Kevin Temple back to himself. He’d been on the road all night, a dedicated run from Indiana hauling a load of fresh vegetables. Fifteen minutes out of the depot in Cleveland, and he had that stale feel, too much coffee washing down too much beef jerky. What he’d really been craving was a double cheeseburger, but while it would surprise no one to see a trucker gone flabby around”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“Be nothing. Be not the spider nor the man nor the future nor the past. Be the moment. Be nothing.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“For a moment, the future threatened to swamp him, the terrifying infinity of it, like being alone in the Pacific in the middle of a starless night, all that water and time around and below him, the deepest hole in the planet sucking him down into darkness.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“A city of unarmed dreamers huddling beneath angry skies.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“Cooper had a theory about personality. Most people considered personality to be a singular identity. Malleable, sure, but essentially cohesive. But he tended to see people as more of a chorus. Every stage in life added a voice to that chorus. The different iterations of himself—lonely military brat, cocky teenager, faithful soldier, young husband, dedicated father, relentless hunter—they all existed within him.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“Telegram@bestsupplies1 Buy Cocaine online in Macau”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“Protecting America is not a job for the squeamish.”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“And then, last, the questions, the same asked by any parent standing over a child in a hospital bed: How did we get here? This can’t really happen, can it? Will you take me instead?”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“Arms wide and palms empty, hyperconscious of how many weapons were trained on him, Cooper was thinking about all the ways things hadn’t gone as planned. It had been a busy month. A busy year. He’d spent half of it undercover, away from his children, hunting the most wanted man in America. But when he’d found John Smith, Cooper”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“He’d been on the road all night, a dedicated run from Indiana hauling a load of fresh vegetables. Fifteen minutes out of the depot in Cleveland, and he had that stale feel, too much coffee washing down too much beef jerky. What he’d really been craving was a double cheeseburger, but while it would surprise no one to see a trucker gone flabby around the middle, it was a point of pride that at thirty-nine he weighed only ten pounds more than he had in high school. When sirens lit up the darkness”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“When sirens lit up the darkness behind him, he jumped, then cursed. Must’ve zoned out, gotten heavy on the pedal—only no, the speedometer read sixty-seven. He’d been tired, but not so whacked that he’d drifted out of his lane. A broken taillight? It was after four in the morning; maybe the cops were just bored. Kevin”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World

“bullet missing your head by an inch, you never forget”
― Marcus Sakey, A Better World