Max Brooks

First of all, there was no way to save everyone. The outbreak was too far gone.

You think that after watching all the wonders of modern warfare fall flat on their high-tech hyper ass, that after watching three months of the Great Panic and watching everything you knew as reality be eaten alive by an enemy that wasn't even supposed to exist that you're gonna keep a cool fucking head and a steady fucking trigger finger? Well, we did! We still managed to do our job and make Zack pay for every fuckin' inch!

The swarm continued among the cars, literally eating its way up the stalled lines, all those poor bastards just trying to get away. And that’s what haunts me most about it, they weren’t headed anywhere.

Did you see the movie, the one Elliot made about us? That scene with the campfire and the grunts all jawing in this witty dialogue, the stories and the dreams for the future, and even that guy with the harmonica. Dude, it was so not like that. First of all, it was the middle of the day, no campfires, no harmonica under the stars, and also everyone was really quiet. You knew what everyone was thinking though, "What the hell are we doing here?" This was Zack's house now, and as far as we were concerned, he could have it. We'd all had plenty of pep talks about "The Future of the Human Spirit." We'd seen the president's speech God knows how many times, but the prez wasn't out here on Zack's front lawn. We had a good thing going behind the Rockies. What the hell were we doing out here?

I think most people would rather face the light of a real enemy than the darkness of their imagined fears. (p. 249)

Two hundred million zombies. Who can even visualize that type of number, let alone combat it? At least this time around we knew what we were combating, but when you added up all the experience, all the data we'd compiled on their origin, their physiology, their strengths, their weaknesses, their motives, and their mentality, it still presented us with a gloomy prospect for victory. The book of war, the one we've been writing since one ape slapped another, was completely useless in this situation. We had to write a new one from scratch.

Lies are neither bad nor good. Like a fire they can either keep you warm or burn you to death, depending on how they're used. [...] The truth was that we were standing at what might be the twilight of our species and that truth was freezing a hundred people to death every night. They needed something to keep them warm. And so I lied, and so did the President, and every doctor and priest, every platoon leader and every parent. "We're going to be okay." That was our message. That was the message of every other filmmaker during the war. [...] There's a word for that kind of lie. Hope.

As soon as the report came in, [General Lang] sat down at his desk, signed a few final orders, addressed and sealed a letter to his family, then put a bullet through his brain. Bastard. I hate him now even more than I did on the way to Hamburg... he knew this was just the first step of a long war and we were going to need men like him to win it... That's why he deserted us like we deserted those civilians. He saw the road ahead, a steep, treacherous mountain road. We'd all have to hike that road, each of us dragging the boulder of what he'd done behind us. [Lang] couldn't do that. He couldn't shoulder the weight.

We knew Phalanx was a placebo, and we were grateful for it. It calmed people down and let us do our job.-''Grover Carlson, former White House Chief of Staff

Their family usually had them bound and gagged. You’d see something moving in the back of a car, squirming softly under clothing or heavy blankets. You’d hear banging from a car’s boot, or, later, from crates with airholes in the backs of vans. 'Airholes' … they really didn’t know what was happening to their loved ones."

I remember thinking, This had better be damned serious. Once I saw their faces, I regretted my wish.

The facts were out; it was now a question of who would believe them.''-Bob Archer, Director of the CIA