Midnight, Water City Quotes

“The dead are apparitions that both haunt and guide us. And maybe they’ve earned it. Most times, they can teach us our own history better than any book.”
― Chris McKinney, Midnight, Water City

“Fooling the world, Brum would say, has always been possible, because people think they’re smarter than they really are. A confidence that, ironically, stems from their fear of seeming stupid.”
― Chris McKinney, Midnight, Water City

“Like when she told me in all of human history, three things never went out of style. Graffiti, keep-out signs, and statues of ourselves. She’d use this rule to explain human nature: we desecrate in protest, we’re afraid of people taking our stuff, and we worship ourselves.”
― Chris McKinney, Midnight, Water City

“I wonder if one day we’ll discover that storytellers are actually mystics with the ability to glimpse the alternate realities around us.”
― Chris McKinney, Midnight, Water City

“Or maybe when you have the sheer force of will to keep doing something over and over again until you get it right, winning feels more like relief than anything else.”
― Chris McKinney, Midnight, Water City

“That’s the funny thing about The Money. They’ll gift each other artifact and libation equal to most people’s annual income. But anyone who ain’t them’s gotta work for it.”
― Chris McKinney, Midnight, Water City

“Maybe a person doesn’t truly feel alive until he fights to stay that way.”
― Chris McKinney, Midnight, Water City

“That’s how you know you’re The Money—when you build so many rooms it’s impossible to fill them, no matter how much you procreate”
― Chris McKinney, Midnight, Water City

“You’re the first,” she said. “The first what?” “The first person who’s declined the opportunity to see the asteroid that might destroy humanity.” I shrugged. “I’ve seen humanity destroy itself enough times already.”
― Chris McKinney, Midnight, Water City

“Maybe the only two good things about getting older is the waning of want and no fear of loneliness.”
― Chris McKinney, Midnight, Water City

“if I can’t tell the difference between a random painting and a masterpiece, maybe the random painting is a masterpiece waiting to be recognized.”
― Chris McKinney, Midnight, Water City

“Without the numbers to the right of pi, pi just becomes three,”
― Chris McKinney, Midnight, Water City

“Because the older I get, the less recognizable I am to myself.”
― Chris McKinney, Midnight, Water City

“She added that despite all the advances in neuroscience, psychology wasn’t going anywhere either. I nodded. It would be around for as long as there are people who wanted to babble about their problems. So, forever.”
― Chris McKinney, Midnight, Water City

“I think back to my father, and the fact that the dead are the only extinguished lights we can never really see again.”
― Chris McKinney, Midnight, Water City

“a presidential election was a way to reassure us how stupid America is every four years. And every single time, America has passed the test.”
― Chris McKinney, Midnight, Water City

“in all of human history, three things never went out of style. Graffiti, keep-out signs, and statues of ourselves.”
― Chris McKinney, Midnight, Water City

“There are so many possible narratives. I think of Jerry’s notions of infinite realities, and I wonder if one day we’ll discover that storytellers are actually mystics with the ability to glimpse the alternate realities around us.”
― Chris McKinney, Midnight, Water City

“I peep through her ocean telescope and look up through the atmospheres. All this modern underwater architecture, lit up with bioluminescence. Condos, aqua resorts, plazas, lighted vac tubes connecting them all. Like a twenty-first century skyline flipped upside down and dropped into the ocean. Refuse drones designed to look like yeti crabs claw out of septic cubes and scurry to the surface, flexing their mechanical limbs. Everything is hydropowered, motion-powered, geo-powered. Sewage, heated and pressurized into biodiesel. Holographic ads circle their gilded prey, telling people they can somehow live forever while looking like a million bucks. The underwater city is always on, data-scavenging all our habits and using the info to create a more efficient place. An underwater panoramic, lubricated by the grease of America.”
― Chris McKinney, Midnight, Water City