{"quotes":[{"text":"Civilization is held together by duct tape and spit, and I'm worried about the duct tape.","author":"Jacqueline Patricks","tags":["apocalypse","civialization","duct-tape","end-of-the-world","sarcasm-humor","worry"],"id":13139,"author_id":"Jacqueline+Patricks"},{"text":"Somewhere on the Earth tonight, my Tylla, there is a Man with a Lever, which, when he pulls it, Will Save The World. The man is now unemployed. His switch gathers dust. He himself plays pinochle.","author":"Ray Bradbury","tags":["civilization","end-of-the-world"],"id":18951,"author_id":"Ray+Bradbury"},{"text":"We must be conscious of this; one day, the life we have, will be gone.","author":"Lailah Gifty Akita","tags":["advice-for-daily-living","advice","and-death-life","conscience","death-and-sickness","death-note","death-wish","dying","end-of-the-world","endings","endings-and-beginnings","endurance-and-attitude","life","life-and-death","life-and-living","life-lessons","life","sickness-and-diseases","wisdom","wise","wise-words","wishes-dreams"],"id":33184,"author_id":"Lailah+Gifty+Akita"},{"text":"Nuclear weapons have only been used twice, both times in the war against Japan. In each case it was used by the United States during World War II. The first was used on August 6, 1945, over the Japanese city of Hiroshima and the second was dropped three days later over the Japanese city of Nagasaki. The two bombs resulted in the deaths of nearly a quarter million people! Recently I have heard it said that since we have the second largest arsenal of nuclear bombs, we should use them to teach North Korea a lesson and reduce tensions. Perhaps we are the ones that need to learn a lesson, so let me start by saying that since these first two bombs that have been used in anger, over two thousand tests have been conducted and that it was Russia that tested the largest bomb ever detonated. On 30 October 1961, Russia which was then the Soviet Union, detonated what was called the Tsar Bomb, a hydrogen bomb with a yield of 50 megatons which is more than 3,000 times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.Are we and our leaders insane? It is only the “Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons” of which we are a member that can reduce the spread and possible the use of nuclear weapons. Now with North Korea being a player, its effectiveness has been questioned and we are on the brink of engaging in a contest that threatens to kill 2,000,000 people in the first day. Many of these people are American military personnel and their families stationed in in Seoul, South Korea. Following any initiative on our part, including the taunts we are making, all bets will be off and there is the possibility that other countries will see the United States as the enemy that has to be stopped!","author":"Captain Hank Bracker","tags":["atomic-bombs","destruction","end-of-the-world","sea-stories","war"],"id":35064,"author_id":"Captain+Hank+Bracker"},{"text":"How baffling it is that we imagined cities incinerated by alien bombs and death rays when all they really needed was Mother Nature and time.","author":"Rick Yancey","tags":["aliens","end-of-the-world","time"],"id":35958,"author_id":"Rick+Yancey"},{"text":"As the night air started to creep in, he lifted her in his arms and walked the back way to their home on campus. He spent the evening digging her grave, not even caring who came his way. He didn’t care whether he lived or died, now that he had lost his only love. Mike glanced into her face one more time, and then covered her with dirt. “We bury our own. We take care of the ones we love.” He spoke softly, then placed a flower on her grave and made his way back to their dorm room.","author":"Joseph McGinnis","tags":["apocalypse","apocalyptic","armageddon","end-of-the-world","science-fiction"],"id":38927,"author_id":"Joseph+McGinnis"},{"text":"Maybe it's ALWAYS the end of the world. Maybe you're alive for a while, and then you realize you're going to die, and that's such an insane thing to comprehend, you look around for answers and the only answer is that the world must die with you.Sure, the world seems crazy now. But wouldn't it seem just as crazy if you were alive when they sacrificed peasants, when people were born into slavery, when they killed first-born sons, crucified priests, fed people to lions, burned them on stakes, when they intentionally gave people smallpox or syphilis, when they gassed them, burned them, dropped atomic bombs on them, when entire races tried to wipe other races off the planet? Yes, we've ruined the planet and melted the ice caps and depleted the ozone, and we're always finding new ways to kill one another. Yeah, we're getting cancer at an alarming rate and suicides are at an all-time high, and, sure, we've got people so depressed they take a drug that could turn them into pasty-skinned animals who go around all night dancing and having sex and eating stray cats and small dogs and squirrels and mice and very, very rarely- the statistics say you're more likely to be killed by lightning- a person.But this is the Apocalypse? Fuck you! It's always the Apocalypse. The world hasn't gone to shit. The world is shit.All I'd asked was that it be better managed.","author":"Jess Walter","tags":["apocalypse","dystopia","end-of-the-world"],"id":60849,"author_id":"Jess+Walter"},{"text":"I set up and staged hundreds of ends-of-the-world and watched, enthralled, as they played themselves out.","author":"Annie Dillard","tags":["end-of-the-world","plays","world"],"id":68026,"author_id":"Annie+Dillard"},{"text":"You are going to die in front of dozens of witnesses, and none of them will do a thing to help you or avenge you. Because they know exactly what you know: The world is ending.","author":"Charlie Huston","tags":["death","end-of-the-world","murder"],"id":68518,"author_id":"Charlie+Huston"},{"text":"It was like the beginning of the end of the world.","author":"Kenneth Eade","tags":["apocalypse","end-of-the-world"],"id":88612,"author_id":"Kenneth+Eade"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":67,"pages":7,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}