Area X Quotes

“Feed Area X but do not antagonize it, and perhaps someone will, through luck or mere repetition, hit upon some explanation, some solution, before the world becomes Area X.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, The Southern Reach Trilogy: Annihilation / Authority / Acceptance

“Someday the fish and the falcon, the fox and the owl, will tell tales, in their way, of this disembodied globe of light and what it contained, all the poison and all the grief that leaked out of it.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, The Southern Reach Trilogy: Annihilation / Authority / Acceptance

“Can you really imagine what it was like in those first moments, peering down into that dark space, and seeing that? Perhaps you can. Perhaps you’re staring at it now.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, The Southern Reach Trilogy: Annihilation / Authority / Acceptance

“In his dreams now, the sky is deep blue with just a twinge of light. He stares from the water up at the cliff far above him. He can see the silhouette of someone peering down at him from the top … can see the way the person leans far over the edge to stare—farther than any human could, yet keeps leaning at a more severe angle, pebbles dislodged and peppering the water around him. While he lies in wait, there, at the bottom of the cliff, swimming vast and unknowable among the other monsters. Waiting in the darkness for the soundless fall, without splash or ripple.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, The Southern Reach Trilogy: Annihilation / Authority / Acceptance

“I marveled at the fact that I had been given such a gift: not just to lose myself in the present moment so utterly but also to have such solitude, which was all I had ever craved”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Area X: Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance

“Everything around you—your office, the conversation in the corridors, the view from Beyond Reach—has acquired a kind of compelling sheen to it, a clarity that comes from knowing you will soon be gone.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Area X: Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance

“a glorified spade.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Area X: Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance

“Books as a salve to the boredom of TV? No, because the bookmark just began to separate one sea of unread words from another.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Area X: Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance

“Control blinked once, twice, three times.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Area X: Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance

“Never skip a step. Skip a step, you’ll find five more new ones waiting ahead of you.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Area X: Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance

“It was a feeling I often had when out in the wilderness: that things were not quite what they seemed, and I had to fight against the sensation because it could overwhelm my scientific objectivity.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Area X: Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance

“Desolation tries to colonize you.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, The Southern Reach Trilogy: Annihilation / Authority / Acceptance