1
You miss a lot of a person’s life when you don’t keep in touch. Maybe that’s the point.Bryant A. Loney
2
Strict parents create sneaky kids.Bryant A. Loney
3
There is no afterlife for wilted flowers like me.Bryant A. Loney
4
The weekends are too short for sleep!Bryant A. Loney
5
Sleep is the only thing I stay awake for.Bryant A. Loney
6
Some people were simply created with the right genes and the proper social skills, I figured. They ended up at a lunch table with a group of good-looking individuals, like them, who did what all good-looking individuals managed: making the rest of us feel both envious of them and sad for ourselves, intentional or not. They had activities outside of school and followers online–people of social necessity who sat at home on Friday nights and 'liked' popular posts in hopes that they, too, might one day be as attractive and personable.Bryant A. Loney
7
Are you afraid of the dark?” I asked.“ No. Monsters aren't real. This is real. I'm scared of what could happen when the lights go out.Bryant A. Loney
8
You do not need to be temperamental or upset to be a novelist. Don’t embrace the tortured artist rhetoric that any life difficulties might serve to benefit and enhance your writing. That’s damaging. Counterintuitive. Writing can be so incredibly lonely, and when you’re alone with your thoughts for long enough to produce a hundred thousand words of your own headspace, it can be scary. Suffering is not good for your art. Mental health care is. So talk to someone other than your future readers about the problems you are facing. Someone you know and trust. There is no shame in asking for help. .Bryant A. Loney
9
We’re not a people worth saving, plain and simple. We’re completely beyond that–both the undead and the few still living. Yeah, 'living.' Some life, huh? But it’s the only life we could ever possibly live if we want to stay alive another day. It’s our life that terrifies me.Bryant A. Loney
10
Pretty average headlines for a worldwide catastrophe, " Jane remarked as she read from Hollywood's Highest. "Some man in Africa claimed to have found the cure for AIDS, yet another politician said something about the president and now formally regrets it, and a pop star OD'd while an actress lost fifteen pounds overnight, and here's how you can, too! " She continued reading. "Oh, wow. The 'Celebrititties' section says she was in a car accident and her arms had to be amputated. Damn.Bryant A. Loney
11
Pretty average headlines for a worldwide catastrophe, ” Jane remarked as she read from Hollywood's Highest. “Some man in Africa claimed to have found the cure for AIDS, yet another politician said something about the president and now formally regrets it, and a pop star OD'd while an actress lost fifteen pounds overnight, and here's how you can, too! ” She continued reading. “Oh, wow. The 'Celebrititties' section says she was in a car accident and her arms had to be amputated. Damn.Bryant A. Loney
12
Nostalgia. It haunts us, it destroys us, and sometimes, its sentimentality consumes us piece by piece so that we may realize our once-familiar circumstance may never again return. It is a state of mind best indulged infrequently.Bryant A. Loney
13
There's always hope. And oceans. Hope and oceans.Bryant A. Loney
14
Not all beaches are fun and sunscreen.Bryant A. Loney
15
This jeweled coast does not shine for its gems are coated with grit.Bryant A. Loney
16
How many of you were born in Oklahoma? Yeah, never raise your hand to a question like that again. We’re the mecca of beer-drinkin’ rednecks.Bryant A. Loney
17
There aren't nearly enough worldly mansions for the kind folks who deserve them.Bryant A. Loney
18
I wasn't the only one hungry on the road, it seemed; a single bite–even a minor scratch–from one of the infected, and we were as good as dead. (And so the cycle repeats.)Bryant A. Loney