“Jackson Nguyen winced as he remembered where and who and what. All the possibilities that existed in those sweet seconds of amnesia after waking, disappeared. The world rushed back in and Jack could only be one thing. Was only ever one thing. Predestined.”

“His flesh dripped away from his skull, a green and brown slop. Both of his eyes were gone, replaced by writhing insects. His nose a pair of sunken pinholes.”

“People still seem to think the world will end with an explosion of some sort. But that‘s not going to happen. Technology will destroy us the day we can‘t tell the difference between the real and the unreal.”

“The crimson-stained earth grew darker as it caught the colors of twilight. The wind that whipped over the wasteland blew cold and carried with it the smells of death and rust, and air scorched by magic.”

“It had been three days since his older sister had ceased to exist. That was why he decided to move. His sister had told him absolutely not to move from where he was, but she was no longer his sister, any more than a hunk of steak was a living cow.”

“We‘re going to tear this foul place to the ground. We‘ll leave nothing behind!”

“With the dawn of a new day still hours away...the hazy glow of the moon was the only light at hand. By that light, I‘d found my new path.”

“I stink like blood and sweat and vomit down to my soul.”

“...though I‘d rather not think about it, there‘s a chance I‘m being held captive in a capsule somewhere, with a disk attached to the back of my skull and my brain imprisoned in a computer-generated world.”

“It‘s not a question of whether I can do it. I will do it. That is reality. Otherwise I will die. That‘s reality too. If I kill, I will not die. Reality. And I will kill...all the goblins.”

“Rotten garbage. Refuse. Bodily waste. The stench suggests the worst outrages happened here. It‘s a smell I‘m used to. I‘m going to destroy them. I just have to eliminate them, one by one.”

“He appeared before us, as though leaping from the pages of some heroic epic. Our knight in shining silver armor.”

“All my life I‘ve wanted to go to Earth. Not to live, of course—just to see it. As everybody knows, Terra is a wonderful place to visit but not to live. Not truly suited to human habitation.”

“The kingdom of Deltora is turned upside down when the King and Queen both die mysteriously and their young son, Endon, is given the Belt of Deltora and pronounced king.”

“‘Heeci‘ecihit.‘ The Bear leaned back and laced his long fingers in his lap. ‘That is what the Arapaho have always called him. Heeci‘ecihit—the Highwayman.‘”

“There are guys online who swear it was heaven. They still sit around like a bunch of old geezers, swapping tales of epic storms, monstrous beasts and grisly battles. Talk to any gamer in their twenties and at some point they‘ll say: ‘You‘re too young to get it. You never saw Otherworld.‘ . . . I‘ve been in Otherworld for over seventeen hours now, and there is no way in hell that I‘m leaving.”

“There‘s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don‘t, and the secret is this: It‘s not the writing part that‘s hard. What‘s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.”

“Our expedition was the first to enter Area X for more than two years, and much of our predecessors‘ equipment had rusted, their tents and sheds little more than husks. Looking out over that untroubled landscape, I do not believe any of us could yet see the threat.”

“Her jaw began to move, as if she were struggling to talk. It was not words that emerged from her greatly enlarged mouth, however, but the rat which had been chewing on the delicacy of her tongue.”

“Work, relationships, falling in love...the magic of tidying up positively impacts every aspect of life.”

“Finally even Roses became helplessly drawn into the insane killing that surrounded him. Now there was only one way out: get away from the whole world, go into the future. But would the future be any better?”

“Sure—and any bright young inventor can get a job with them. And then he‘s a kept man—the inventions belong to the corporation, and only those that fit into the pattern of the powers-that-be ever see the light. The rest are shelved. Do you really think that they‘d let a free lance like you upset investments of billions of dollars?”

“No is an acceptable answer, and it‘s time to start using it.”

“He cocked the piece. Then he went over and sat down on the unoccupied twin bed, looked at the girl, aimed the pistol, and fired a bullet through his right temple.”
Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger

I could not put this book down! If you are a fan of the show, adventuring or just a fan of Josh Gates, this book is a great look into how it started and what happens behind the scenes on his travels.

A quick and interesting read. 💯