Home > Work > Swan Song
21 " tears! For I am thy passin’ guest, a sojourner, like all my fathers. Look away from me, that I may know gladness, before I depart and be no more. "
― Robert McCammon , Swan Song
22 " The color reminded Josh of what the summer sky had looked like when he himself was a child, with all the tomorrows before him and no place to go in any particular hurry. "
23 " But he’d inherited the mistakes of the generations of presidents before him, "
24 " Strategic Air Command in Omaha "
25 " The Basement was an underground shelter in Delaware where the first lady, the president’s seventeen-year-old son, ranking cabinet members and staff people would—they hoped—be protected from all but a direct hit by a one-megaton nuclear warhead. "
26 " a few of them were already hollering for help, but most were shocked silent. His mother had looked at him, orange juice dripping from her hair and face, and said, “Next year we go to the beach. "
27 " local man who ran a hardware store in nearby Belleville, "
28 " It was certainly a miracle that they were still alive, and a corpse that could sit up and speak was not something you saw every day. "
29 " we had a love affair with fire, the president of the United States thought as the match that he’d just struck to light his pipe flared beneath his fingers. He stared into it, mesmerized by its color—and as the fire grew he had the vision of a tower of flame a thousand feet tall, whirling across the country he loved, torching cities and towns, turning rivers to steam, ripping across the ruins of heartland farms and casting "
30 " Even the most worthless thing in the world can be beautiful, it just takes the right touch "
31 " One Step...and then the next gets you where you're going."- Sister Creep "
32 " ...just shattered structures rising up like rotten teeth from a diseased jaw. "
33 " take it one step at a time. One step and then the next gets you where you’re going. "
34 " as she’d watched him stagger away Swan had realized that forgiveness crippled evil, drew the poison from it like lancing a boil. "
35 " God A’mighty, what’s the point of livin’ if you don’t fight for what you hold dear? "
36 " Even the most worthless thing in the world can be beautiful,” she said. “It just takes the right touch. "
37 " If ... if you were God ... would you destroy this world?” Hannan "
38 " Josh was beginning to believe the whole thing was like professional wrestling: the superpowers put on their masks and stomped around, roaring threats and swinging wildly at each other, but it was a game of macho, strutting bluff. "
39 " Something that resembled a small, unblinking scarlet eye opened in the center of the flame, and he wanted to scream. "
40 " Once upon a time, he thought, we had a love affair with fire. "