1. “What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not.”
2. “Where did everybody go? And that’s how it will be. What’s wrong with that?”
3. “From daydreams on the road there was no waking. He plodded on. He could remember everything of her save her scent. Seated in a theatre with her beside him leaning forward listening to the music. Gold scrollwork and sconces and the tall columnar folds of the drapes at either side of the stage. She held his hand in her lap and he could feel the tops of her stockings through the thin stuff of her summer dress. Freeze this frame. Now call down your dark and your cold and be damned.”
4. “Perhaps in the world’s destruction it would be possible at last to see how it was made. Oceans, mountains. The ponderous counterspectacle of things ceasing to be. The sweeping waste, hydroptic and coldly secular. The silence.”
5. “If trouble comes when you least expect it then maybe the thing to do is to always expect it.”
6. “As for me my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart. ”
7. “The cap was gone and the man dropped to his elbows to smell the pipe but the odor of gas was only a rumor, faint and stale.”
8. “Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die. What if it doesn’t fire? It has to fire. Could you crush that beloved skull with a rock?”
9. “There was a sharp crack from somewhere on the mountain. Then another. It’s just a tree falling, he said. It’s okay. The boy was looking at the dead roadside trees. It’s okay, the man said. All the trees in the world are going to fall sooner or later. But not on us.”
10. “There is no later. This is later.”
11. “The frailty of everything revealed at last. Old and troubling issues resolved into nothingness and night. The last instance of a thing takes the class with it. Turns out the light and is gone. Look around you. Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all.”
12. “His mind was betraying him. Phantoms not heard from in a thousand years rousing slowly from their sleep.”
13. “This is what the good guys do. They keep trying. They don’t give up.”
14. “Can I ask you something? Yes. Of course you can. What would you do if I died? If you died I would want to die too. So you could be with me? Yes. So I could be with you. Okay.”
15. “That he could not enkindle in the heart of the child what was ashes in his own.”
16. “In what direction did lost men veer?”
17. “He thought that in the history of the world it might even be that there was more punishment than crime but he took small comfort from it.”
18. “All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one’s heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes. So, he whispered to the sleeping boy. I have you.”
19. “He lay listening to the water drip in the woods. Bedrock, this. The cold and the silence. The ashes of the late world carried on the bleak and temporal winds to and fro in the void. Carried forth and scattered and carried forth again. Everything uncoupled from its shoring. Unsupported in the ashen air. Sustained by a breath, trembling and brief.”
20. “Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.”
21. “Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.”
22. “When we’re all gone at last then there’ll be nobody here but death and his days will be numbered too.”
23. “Each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins.”
24. “So be sparing. What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not.”
25. “The ashes of the late world carried on the bleak and temporal winds to and fro in the void.”
26. “This is my child, he said. I wash a dead man’s brains out of his hair. That is my job.”
27. “He knew only that his child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke.”
28. “When he went back to the fire he knelt and smoothed her hair as she slept and he said if he were God he would have made the world just so and no different.”
29. “This was the perfect day of his childhood. This the day to shape the days upon.”
30. “How would you know if you were the last man on Earth? He said.
31. “The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one’s heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
32. “People always getting ready for tomorrow. I didn’t believe in that. Tomorrow wasn’t getting ready for them. It didn’t even know they were there.”
33. “each the other’s world entire.”
34. “You have my whole heart. You always did. You’re the best guy. You always were.”
35. “When we’re all gone at last then there’ll be nobody here but death and his days will be numbered too. He’ll be out in the road there with nothing to do and nobody to do it to. He’ll say: where did everybody go? And that’s how it will be. What’s wrong with that?”
36. “He can give me what you cannot. Death is not a lover. Oh yes, he is.”
37. “The men poured gasoline on them and burned them alive, having no remedy for evil but only for the image of it as they conceived it to be.”
38. “In his dream she was sick and he cared for her. The dream bore the look of sacrifice but he thought differently. He did not take care of her and she died alone somewhere in the dark and there is no other dream nor other waking world and there is no other tale to tell.”
39. “She said that the breath of God was his breath yet though it pass from man to man through all of time”
40. “Every day is a lie. But you are dying. That is not a lie. ”
41. “They struggled forever in the roads cold coagulate.”
42. “Dont let go. Okay. No matter what. No matter what.”
43. “Not all dying words are true and this blessing is no less real for being shorn of its ground.”
44. “Where men can’t live gods fare no better.”
45. “Where you’ve nothing else, construct ceremonies out of the air, and breathe upon them.”
46. “The frailty of everything revealed at last.”
47. “What he could bear in the waking world he could not by night and he sat awake for fear the dream would return.”
48. “I will do what I promised, he whispered. No matter what. I will not send you into the darkness alone.”
49. “And the dreams so rich in color. How else would death call you?”
50. “What you put in your head is there forever.”
51. “When the shooting starts would you rather be armed or legal?”
52. “We’re carrying the fire.”
53. “Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.”
54. “There was light all about him.”
55. “You say you can’t? Then don’t do it. That’s all.”
56. “That the boy was all that stood between him and death.”
57. “The breath of God was his yet, though it pass from man to man through all of time.”
58. “Look around you. Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all.”
59. “Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden.”
60. “Ever is a long time.”
61. “If you break little promises you’ll break big ones. That’s what you said.”
62. “When one has nothing left make ceremonies out of the air and breathe upon them.”
63. “He walked to the top of a rise and crouched and watched the day accrue. The chary dawn, the cold illucid world.”
64. “By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp.”
65. “the right dreams for a man in peril were dreams of peril and all else was the call of languor and of death.”
66. “Carry the fire.”
67. “They lay listening. Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die. What if it doesn’t fire? It has to fire. What if it doesn’t fire? Could you crush that beloved skull with a rock? Is there such a being within you of which you know nothing? Can there be? Hold him in your arms. Just so. The soul is quick. Pull him toward you. Kiss him. Quickly.”
68. “They say that women dream of danger to those in their care and men of danger to themselves. But I dont dream at all.”
69. “How does the never to be differ from what never was?”
70. “When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world.”
71. “What. When your dreams are of some world that never was or of some world that never will be and you are happy again then you will have given up.”
72. “Are you real brave? Just medium. What’s the bravest thing you ever did? He spat into the road a bloody phlegm. Getting up this morning, he said.”
73. “Now call down your dark and your cold and be damned.”
74. “Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.”
75. “She was gone and the coldness of it was her final gift.”
76. “There is no God and we are his prophets.”
77. “The wind sounded of Mother Earth’s forsaken and abandoned cries.”
78. “Then he just knelt in the ashes. He raised his face to the paling day. Are you there? he whispered. Will I see you at the last? Have you a neck by which to throttle you? Have you a heart? Damn you eternally have you a soul? Oh God, he whispered, Oh God.”
79. “All through the long dusk”
80. “In the deep glens where they lived, all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.”
81. “The woman when she saw him put her arms around him and held him. Oh, she said, I am so glad to see you. She would talk to him sometimes about God. He tried to talk to God but the best thing was to talk to his father and he did talk to him and he didn’t forget. The woman said that was all right. She said that the breath of God was his breath yet though it pass from man to man through all of time.”
82. “If he is not the word of God God never spoke”
83. “I have to watch you all the time, the boy said. I know. If you break little promises you’ll break big ones.”
84. “In the nights in their thousands to dream the dreams of a child’s imaginings, worlds rich or fearful such as might offer themselves but never the one to be.”
85. “There is no book and your fathers are dead in the ground.”
86. “No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one’s heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
87. “He thought each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins. As in a party game. Say the word and pass it on. So be sparing. What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not.”
88. “They stood on the far shore of a river and called to him. Tattered gods slouching in their rags across the waste. Trekking the dried floor of a mineral sea where it lay cracked and broken like a fallen plate. Paths of feral fire in the coagulate sands. The figures faded in the distance. He woke and lay in the dark.”
89. “People were always getting ready for tomorrow.”
90. “I dont want anybody talking about me. To say where I was or what I said when I was there. I mean, you could talk about me maybe. But nobody could say that it was me. I could be anybody. I think in times like these the less said the better. If something had happened and we were survivors and we met on the road then we’d have something to talk about. But we’re not. So we dont.”
91. “If only my heart were stone.”
92. “Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave.”
93. “Each the others world entire.”
94. “The boy’s candlecolored skin was all but translucent.”
95. “The nights were blinding cold and casket black and the long reach of the morning had a terrible silence to it. Like a dawn before battle.”
96. “He slept little and he slept poorly.”
97. “Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that. You forget some things, dont you? Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.”
98. “Even if you knew what to do you wouldnt know what to do. You wouldnt know if you wanted to do it or not.”
99. “It took two days to cross that ashen scabland. The road beyond ran along the crest of a ridge where the barren woodland fell away on every side. It’s snowing, the boy said. He looked at the sky. A single gray flake sifting down. He caught it in his hand and watched it expire there like the last host of christendom.”
100. “On this road there are no godspoke men. They are gone and I am left and they have taken with them the world.”
101. “The man could hear him playing. A formless music for the age to come. Or perhaps the last music on earth called up from out of the ashes of its ruin.”
102. “The faint light all about, quivering and sourceless, refracted in the rain of drifting soot.”
103. “When you die it’s the same as if everybody else did too.”
104. “Okay. This is what the good guys do. They keep trying. They dont give up. Okay.”
105. “Suppose you were the last one left? Suppose you did that to yourself?”
106. “There were times when he sat watching the boy sleep that he would begin to sob uncontrollably but it wasn’t about death. He wasn’t sure what it was about but he thought it was about beauty or goodness. Things that he’d no longer any way to think about at all.”
107. “If I’m not here you can still talk to me. You can talk to me and I’ll talk to you. You’ll see.”
108. “In the nights sometimes now he’d wake in the back and freezing waste out of softly colored worlds of human love, the songs of birds, the sun.”
109. “He’d not have thought the value of the smallest thing predicated on the world to come.”
110. “They slept huddled together in the rank quilts in the dark and the cold. He held the boy close to him. So thin. My heart, he said. My heart.”
111. “What’s the bravest thing you ever did? He spat in the road a bloody phlegm. Getting up this morning, he said.”
112. “He could not construct for the child’s pleasure the world he’d lost without constructing the loss as well and he thought perhaps the child had known this better than he.”
113. “You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget”
114. “The small wad of burning paper drew down to a wisp of flame and then died out leaving a faint pattern for just a moment in the incandescence like the shape of a flower, a molten rose. Then all was dark again.”
115. “Then they set out along the blacktop in the gunmetal light, shuffling through the ash, each the other’s world entire.”
116. “Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before.”
117. “Where all was burnt to ash before them no fires were to be had and the nights were long and dark and cold beyond anything they’d yet encountered. Cold to crack the stones. To take your life.”
