Quotes From "The Passage" By Justin Cronin

In her mind's eye she saw it, saw it all at last: the rolling armies and the flames of battle; the graves and pits and dying cries of a hundred million souls; the spreading darkness, like a black wing stretching over the earth; the last, bitter hours of cruelty and sorrow, and the terrible, final flights; death's great dominion over all, and, at the last, empty cities, becalmed by the silence of a hundred years. Already these things were coming to pass. Justin Cronin

It was more than physical attraction; it was the broken thing inside him she loved most of all, the unreachable place where he kept his sadness. Because that was the thing about Peter Jaxon that nobody knew but her, because she loved him like she did: how terribly sad he was. And not just in the day-to-day, the ordinary sadness everyone carried for the things and people they had lost; his was something more. If she could find this sadness, Sara believed, and take it from him, then he would love her in return. . Justin Cronin

What strange places our lives can carry us to, what dark passages. Justin Cronin

The restraints were nothing, like paper. The rivets popped from the table and shot across the room. First his arms and then his legs. The room was dark but hid nothing from his eyes, because the darkness was part of him now. And inside him, far down, a great devouring hunger uncoiled itself. To eat the very world. To take it all inside him and be filled by it, made whole. To make the world eternal, as he was. Justin Cronin

Last night they came again. The soldiers had set up a defense perimeter, but there were simply too many–they must have come by the hundreds of thousands, a huge swarm that blotted out the stars. Three soldiers killed, as well as Cole. He was standing right in front of me; they actually lifted him off his feet before they bored through him like hot knives through butter. There was barely enough of him left to bury. Justin Cronin

For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil; but in the end she is as bitter as wormword, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of hell Justin Cronin

The things of your life arrived in their own time, like a train you had to catch. Sometimes this was easy, all you had to do was step onto it, the train was plush and comfortable and full of people smiling at you in a hush, and a conductor who punched your ticket and tousled your head with his big hand, saying, Ain’t you pretty, ain’t you the prettiest girl now, lucky lady taking a big train trip with your daddy, while you sank into the dreamy softness of your seat and sipped ginger ale from a can and watched the world float in magical silence past your window, the tall buildings of the city in the crisp autumn light and then the backs of the houses with laundry flapping and a crossing with gates where a boy was waving from his bicycle, and then the woods and fields and a single cow eating grass...... Because sometimes it was one way, easy, and sometimes it was the other, not easy; the things of your life roared down to you and it was all you could do to grab hold and hang on. Your old life ended, and the train took you away to another.. . Justin Cronin

Peter held up the book he had been reading: 'Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'."To tell you the truth, I'm not even sure this is English, " Peter said. "It's taken me most of today to get through a page. Justin Cronin

It's not that I don't believe you, " Peter managed. "I'm sorry. It's just that...it's only a story."" Perhaps." She shrugged. "And perheps someday someone will say those very words about you, Peter. What do you say to that? Justin Cronin

And then, despite all these concerns, Arnette felt her mind begin to loosen, the images of the day unwinding inside her like a spool of thread, pulling her down into sleep. Justin Cronin

Perhaps the greatest worry of all was that one day you would realize that all the worries of your life amounted to one thing: the desire to just stop worrying. Justin Cronin

Zander was always sneaking off to the library to get more books ... Guy would read anything. Said books were more interesting than people. Justin Cronin

He has to come to it on his own. Justin Cronin