people were like machines. They broke down. They rattled. They could burn you or maim you if you weren’t careful. - Hugh Howey

He continued to see inevitable events from the past as avoidable, long after they'd taken their course.

Fiction challenges us and works its miracles by placing us in the skin of another human being and teaching us empathy.

There was no going around it, so we tried to race back to the inlet, but the storm was moving too fast. Winds over fifty miles an hour. It hit us all at once like a heavenly fist, a mighty slam of stinging rain and raucous seas.