Vigilance Quotes

“Rifles are for people who are going out to do shooting. But a man carrying a pistol—he’s worried about getting shot at.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, Vigilance

“What an easy thing it is, to make Americans destroy ourselves, she thinks. You just have to make a spectacle out of it.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, Vigilance

“Pistols are the choice of the afraid. Pistols are the choice of the vigilant.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, Vigilance

“The point of being American was that you got to own shit. But when you owned shit, you were afraid someone would take it. But you could be brave, and fight back - if you had a gun.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, Vigilance

“(...) their marketing research has done its job. Every time, they pick people who genuinely, really want to carry out a mass shooting.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, Vigilance

“More than anyone alive, John McDean knows America isn't a place to live in—not anymore. It's a place you survive. And such place is highly monetizale for Our Nation's Truth.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, Vigilance

“Since the turn of the century, America's media had been constantly telling Americans that they weren't safe, because that was what people wanted to hear: the fuman brain had evolved to prioritize threats, so they instantly migrated to them. This meant the news gave them all the threats they could have possibly wanted to hear-anything for a click or a ratings bump.
Eventually, Americans had gotten so conditioned that they couldn't conceive of an America without constant danger. They saw people shooting on the news, screaming on the news, dying on the news, and they's started to believe—this is just ordinary life. And it was up to you to deal with it.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, Vigilance

“Now, the obvious fucking question was —why would civilians agree to this? Why consent to the possibility that you might be gunned down for pure entertainment?
The first answer to that was easy: America was dying. Quite literally.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, Vigilance

“Ammunition was free, of course, including hollow-points and armor-piercing rounds. Shoot all you'd like, they said. That's the point.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, Vigilance

“You were creating a story that every audience member would cast themselves in, and the allure came from watching to see if they'd survive.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, Vigilance

“Everyone knows any building could be a Vigilance environment these days, yeah? But that's the point, right?”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, Vigilance

“You know why those kids died? You know why dozens of those little kids are dead? It's because we thought schools were safe. Because we've been complacent. Because we aren't ready. Because we stil aren't gosh-darned vigilant!”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, Vigilance

“But sometime at the turn of the century that fear had grown. A lot—in tenor, in intensity, in scope. People became afraid of their own government, their own soldiers, their own neighbors, of companies and technology and schools and churches and other nations. There was just so much to worry about.
So what did you do? You bought a fucking gun.
(...) the more people were afraid, the more they bought guns. The more guns that were around, the more people tended to use them on each other. The more they used them on each other, the more they were afraid—and so, the more everyone bought guns.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, Vigilance

“How did they do it? How did they beat back the tides of evil, and bring democracy and freedom to the world, and keep the forces of fascism from taking away America itself? With a whole bunch of big fucking guns.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, Vigilance

“The heart of the matter war that, from the beginning, America had always been a nation of fear.
Fear of the monarchy. Fear of the elites. Fear of losing your property, to the government or invasion. A fear that, though you had worked damn hard to own your own property, some dumb thug or smug city prick would either find a way to steal it or use the law to steal it.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, Vigilance

“But the final thing, the core quality that John McDean's Ideal Person must have, just absolutely must have, is that they must, must, must own a gun.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, Vigilance

“Hello, boys”, he says jovially. “Who's ready to kill some motherfuckers?”
The control room explodes with whoops and claps. McDean strides in and gets ready to start the show.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, Vigilance

“she knows why she hasn’t left: because she believed that things would change. That they would get better. She wasn’t sure why—she just thought it would. Such an idea had been engraved in her mind since childhood: the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. It is the American story, or so she thought. Yet she’s realized all too late that it is exactly that—a story. An idea, a fiction, or maybe even a piece of propaganda designed to keep her here and quiet. Perhaps change isn’t always slow and incrementally positive. Perhaps it can be fast, and for the worse. Perhaps things will never get better. Perhaps the present is also the future.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, Vigilance