Calvin Trillin Quotes

Let's get this started, people. It won't be long before we all lose our minds.

Oh my God. My God. It’s all over.

I'm out of control.

The capacity to produce social chaos is the last resort of desperate people.

We can't discount how scary and shaken not just the Turkish government is, but Turkish society is. Imagine if you had some rump group of military officials here in the United States who started flying off with F-16s or other artillery and were taking shots at government buildings, and people were killed and injured. People would be scared and rightfully so.

It is like sitting in a traffic jam on the San Diego Freeway with your windows rolled up and Portuguese music booming out of the surround-sound speakers while animals gnaw on your neck and diseased bill collectors hammer on your doors with golf clubs.

There was no warning before the outbreaks began. One day, things were normal; the next, people who were supposedly dead were getting up and attacking anything that came into range. This was upsetting for everyone involved, except for the infected, who were past being upset about that sort of thing.

Dread of disaster makes everybody act in the very way that increases the disaster. Psychologically the situation is analogous to that of people trampled to death when there is a panic in a theatre caused by a cry of 'Fire!'.

I knew that there had been times in the past-terrible times-when people had destroyed others in haste,in fear, and had brought about their own destruction

I am caught like a beast at bay. Somewhere are people, freedom, light, But all I hear is the baying of the pack, There is no way out for me.

We are in the middle of what looks increasingly like the zombie apocalypse. Moaning people don't need help. Moaning people are intending to eat us.

Once released from life, having lost it in such violence, I couldn’t calculate my steps. I didn’t have time for contemplation. In violence it is the getting out that you concentrate on. When you begin to go over the edge, life receding from you as a boat recedes inevitably from the shore, you hold on to death tightly, like a rope that will transport you, and you swing out on it, hoping to land away from where you are.

To experience real agony is something hard to write about, impossible to understand while it grips you; you're frightened out of your wits, can’t sit still, move, or even go decently insane.

it’s like swimming upstream. Or … falling down a cliff and grabbing at branches, trying to invent the branches as I fall.

Poorpeoplestaying intheir houses aslong astill thevery fire touched them, and then running into boats or clambering from one pair of stair by the waterside to another. And among other things, the poor pigeons I perceive were loath to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconies till they were some of them burned, their wings, and fell down.

Save yourselves!" Percy warned. "It is too late for us!" Then he gasped and pointed to the spot where Frank was hiding. "oh no! Frank is turning into a crazy dolphin!" Nothing happened. "I said," Percy repeated, "Frank is turning into a crazy dolphin." Frank stumbled out of nowhere, making a big show of grabbing his throat. "oh no," he said, like he was reading from a teleprompter, "I am turning into a crazy dolphin.

E!" Klaus cried. "E as in Exit!" The Baudelaires ran down E as in Exit, but when they reached the last cabinet, the row was becoming F as in Falling File Cabinets, G as in Go the Other Way! and H as in How in the World Are We Going to Escape?

People are crazy and times are strange ... I used to care but things have changed

When you're running down the street on fire, people get out of your way!

Disney World?” Ari felt like his head was about to explode. “Disney World?” His gravelly voice rose into a harsh shriek. “They’re not on vacation! They’re on the run! They’re running for their lives! Death is following them like a bullet, and they’re on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad?

The man was running away with the rest, and selling his papers for a shilling each as he ran—a grotesque mingling of profit and panic.

We’re burning,” Sadie pointed out helpfully. “Noticed!” I yelled back.

I only saw fire and chandeliers and smoke. No people. Not the room. Not even a time frame. Do you know how many chandeliers there are in the south wing alone? What was I supposed to do? Tell everyone to avoid chandeliers forever?