Sci-Fi is the genre that explored both possibilities: the end of our existential crisis and the end of our existence. My novel, The 5th Wave, explores the latter scenario, because, frankly, I believe it represents the likeliest outcome of an extraterrestrial encounter. In short, if they're out there, we better hope they never find us.

We’re here, and then we’re gone, and it’s not about the time we’re here, but what we do with the time.

That's what you do when the curtain is falling--you give the line that the audience wants to hear.

How oft do they rescue or ruin us, through whimsy or design or a combination of both, the adults to whom we entrust our care!

Miss Marks, you see, makes her living by...entertaining young, and not so young, sailors...or any other members of the armed forced, or civilians, who enjoy...being entertained by ladies who...entertain.

I'm one, too," he said. "What?" He spit a wad of blood and mucus into the dirt. "A virgin." What a shock. "What makes you think I'm a virgin?" I asked. "You wouldn't have hit me if you weren't.

There was, like, this black hole where the world used to be, and we were both falling toward it. What could we hold on to?