Unlocked Quotes

“Attempting to use a biological agent against your enemy while avoiding its effects on you is like trying to use a grenade by holding onto it and hoping all the shrapnel flies in the direction of the person you want to kill.”
― John Scalzi, Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome

“The trick is not to find the story of the century. You won’t miss that story when it happens. No one will miss it. The trick is to find the story of the day and for that day make whoever reads it or hears it care about it so intensely that it doesn’t leave them. Then it becomes a story of their life. Maybe even the story of their life.”
― John Scalzi, Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome

“When I was a kid I watched a documentary about the movie Planet of the Apes. The first one, with Charlton Heston. They were talking about how they would make up all the extras as various types of apes, like chimps and gorillas and orangutans, and then the extras would go to lunch and they would segregate. All the people made up like gorillas would sit with other gorillas, all the chimps would sit with chimps.”
― John Scalzi, Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome

“The half-life between story of the century and not even the story of the day is quicker than you would ever guess.”
― John Scalzi, Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome

“sooner or later, everything simply becomes daily life. When Haden’s first struck, it was the most important news story of the century. Everyone knew it. Everyone felt it. But then it just… became part of the fabric of the American story, day in and day out.”
― John Scalzi, Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome

“No one thinks of it as an epidemic. It’s just the cost of doing business. The cost of living our lives. Haden’s syndrome has become that now. A chronic disease of our nation, and of the planet.”
― John Scalzi, Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome