Top 40 Eliot Schrefer Quotes (2026 Update)

1. “Traditions are just peer pressure from dead people.”

— Eliot Schrefer

2. “You have to learn when to ignore suffering so that you’re strong enough to fight it when the time is right.”

— Eliot Schrefer

3. “Saving myself would mean destroying him.”

— Eliot Schrefer

4. “I knew at least Banalia was dead; that had happened right in front of my eyes. They would either eat her now or smoke her body to sell the meat. It made my stomach turn – the DNA in that meat was almost 99 percent the same as human DNA; it was nearly cannibalism. But the men were hungry.”

— Eliot Schrefer

5. “But it had always been my mom’s philosophy that the way we treat animals goes hand in hand with the way we treat people, and so she would dedicate her life to stopping men like this one, bushmeat traders hoping for sale.”

— Eliot Schrefer

6. “Everyone here constantly laughed at tragedy, as if insulting misfortune would keep it at bay.”

— Eliot Schrefer

7. “My feet hurt, I was light-headed with stress and bad meals, and the idea of perhaps eating real food and sitting in a chair – or even sleeping in a bed! – sounded like bliss.”

— Eliot Schrefer

8. “The smell coming off my flesh had gone from simple stinkiness to something weird and almost appetizing, close to sour-cream-and-onion potato chips.”

— Eliot Schrefer

9. “On average, twelve hundred Congolese had been killed every day since 1998. Five point four million. And it wasn’t nearly over yet.”

— Eliot Schrefer

10. “He murped, then went to the edge of the overgrowth and stood there agitatedly, waiting for me to follow, glaring at me like I was an idiot who didn’t know how to take a hint.”

— Eliot Schrefer

11. “He has that effect on horses,” Abeke said with a smile. “And walruses. And some people. Is there anything to eat?”

— Eliot Schrefer

12. “As I finished the bed, thinking it looked surprisingly comfortable, a terrible black feeling came over me and I shuddered, aching at the sudden loneliness. I missed my new family.”

— Eliot Schrefer

13. “Even if Tellun himself bounded in here with party hats, I’m not sure there would be any reason to celebrate.”

— Eliot Schrefer

14. “He’s extremely dehydrated and we’ll need to get fluids into him as soon as possible if he’s to have a hope of surviving.”

— Eliot Schrefer

15. “General Gar, the leader of the Conquerors, was waiting for them. The Devourer.”

— Eliot Schrefer

16. “Tarik was dead. Lumeo was dead. An.”

— Eliot Schrefer

17. “He did an excellent Tarik impression, bringing his voice low and softly accenting the ends of his sentences. Scrubber, his raccoon, flailed and squirmed on the ground, pretending to be Monte himself. It was a light moment in the.”

— Eliot Schrefer

18. “She positions herself on a stool in front of a giant washing machine, watching her garments twirl in flashing patterns of red and white on a sea of black. It subdues her, that clothes can be washed in Boston or Rome and look the same for it, that she can step on an airplane and be anywhere else in the civilized world within a day and wear the same clothes and be the same person. That the small realities stay knitted together!”

— Eliot Schrefer

19. “Intimacy is the only shield against insanity. Intimacy, not knowledge. Intimacy, not power.”

— Eliot Schrefer

20. “If she dares attack, I will pounce behind her triangular head like a mongoose, and shake until she can move no more. That will be my reply to her.” Conor.”

— Eliot Schrefer

21. “I have to tell you how nice that sound is. I haven’t heard laughter in weeks.”

— Eliot Schrefer

22. “She might have received more formal training than he had, might have more breeding and etiquette, but right here, right now, he would have outclassed her. Meilin desperately wished he could be alongside her. It.”

— Eliot Schrefer

23. “Since the bigger gorillas leave chimps only a fraction of the quantity of food bonobos get, each chimp must fight ferociously to survive, including killing other chimpanzees.”

— Eliot Schrefer

24. “Luckily Rollan was more unflappable. He stepped forward, bravely brandishing his long dagger, however pathetic it looked compared to the teeth of Cabaro.”

— Eliot Schrefer

25. “Rollan frowned. “Conor, is this what I sounded like that day Olvan asked us to become Greencloaks? If so, I give you permission to punch me. Once. In the shoulder.”

— Eliot Schrefer

26. “He’s a stranger, a lover, and my life partner. We have lived and died lifetimes together, and it makes me shiver every time that odd truth comes over me.”

— Eliot Schrefer

27. “This lifetime is yours to make what you will of it.”

— Eliot Schrefer

28. “Because Tarik was dead.”

— Eliot Schrefer

29. “I am in a waiting room without end, without location, without time or place. If I go outside, I die before I get any answers. I exist only in a theoretical way, like a point on a coordinate plane. I am the simulation.”

— Eliot Schrefer

30. “I will unravel here.”

— Eliot Schrefer

31. “I can offer you water or, um, water. Some of the pouches have a slightly different font, so you can choose serif hydration or sans serif hydration.”

— Eliot Schrefer

32. “Emotions have their effects even after you try to bully them out of existence.”

— Eliot Schrefer

33. “I could stare at this forever: swirling stars in the background and a human being, a real live human, lost in a task.”

— Eliot Schrefer

34. “Insanity used to be a stranger that lived on the other side of the world. Now it’s moved next door. It’s only a matter of time until it becomes shipmate, lover, self.”

— Eliot Schrefer

35. “This planet isn’t my new home, it’s the only home I’ve ever had.”

— Eliot Schrefer

36. “He looks like he spends his day crushing warriors under the shield of Aeneas. Muscles band his arms and neck. Thick, lustrous hair falls in blue-black waves along his cheeks, his eyes a speckled tan, nestled deep. His olive skin is smooth and unmarred, except where thick stubble shades his jawline. Even his stubble looks like it could take me in a fight.”

— Eliot Schrefer

37. “Wow, that was salty. I kind of like it,” I say, smiling up at the disembodied voice, my hands punching into my pockets, to show off the muscles of my arms. Am I flirting with my operating system? I think I’m flirting with my operating system. That voice.”

— Eliot Schrefer

38. “I like my hand, my blipping brain decides. It’s a beautiful hand.”

— Eliot Schrefer

39. “Between those times we’ll fight to live.”

— Eliot Schrefer

40. “It’s weirdly reassuring: when adoration is selfish, it’s not going anywhere.”

— Eliot Schrefer