"Our civilisation had the technology to land a man on the moon, but as individuals we don't even have the skill to make an iron spearhead."
— Dr Bronson, Survivors (1975)
"For the moment we've got all we need—food, supplies, everything. But the food will go bad, the metal will rust, the petrol to drive the machines will run out! Before that happens, we have to learn to plow...and learn to make plows, and learn to smelt the iron to make the plowshares. We must learn to make good all that we wear out—if not...we say goodbye to civilisation and we slide right back into savagery."
— Jack Coker, The Day of the Triffids (1981)
"Save this offering. We are not ready for it yet, but someday it will increase our power. Break open the casing. Inside is a small motor. Remove it. It may be useful."
— Mindwarp (1992)
"Get out of the way. I have to save her."
"Save her for what?" Carol is suddenly furious. She does not move. "This is a play, a joke, a re-enactment of something that never was. Did you go to your prom on a bicycle? Did you play only songs that your parents listened to when they were kids? Did you grow up thinking that scavenging would be the only profession? Our way of life is long gone, dead, finished!"
"What will you have her do when this house falls apart in thirty years? What will she do when the last bottle of aspirin is gone, the last steel pot rusted through? Will you condemn her and her children to a life of picking through our garbage heaps, sliding down the technology ladder year after year until they've lost all the progress made by the human race in the last five thousand years?"
— Staying Behind, by Ken Liu
"Their world crumbled. The cities exploded. A whirlwind of looting, a firestorm of fear. Men began to feed on men. On the roads it was a white line nightmare. Only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive. The gangs took over the highways, ready to wage war for a tank of juice. And in this maelstrom of decay, ordinary men were battered and smashed."
"The Wasteland holds many gifts, but her most common one is a sudden and painful death."
— Chumbucket, Mad Max (2015)
Theo: There were books on how to build a nuclear power plant or make phones work. But you had to understand all the stuff leading up to that to know what the hell was in those books. Am I right?
Neil: Most of us here have been with Theo since the beginning. She, uh, lets us read all the time. We don't have to work. She finds books for us, and looks after us. We, uh...Even get laid sometimes.
Theo: Yeah, and in return, we get goodies that help keep things moving forward.
Neil: Most of us here have been with Theo since the beginning. She, uh, lets us read all the time. We don't have to work. She finds books for us, and looks after us. We, uh...Even get laid sometimes.
Theo: Yeah, and in return, we get goodies that help keep things moving forward.
—Jeremiah, "The Long Road"
