quotations about zombies
The answer to why the modern understanding of zombies so profoundly affects us is that, ironically enough, they are us. At least, they are what we fear to become.
NATHAN BROWN
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Zombies
It would not be so much tragic as silly to see monsters dressed up like ordinary folk--a funny kind of reversal of Halloween revelry--if these flesh-eaters were not so recently our family and friends. So if zombies are properly pathetic, we must think that these creatures were once quite different from what they are now. That is, if zombies are proper objects of our pathos, we must think that these very same individuals were once something immeasurably better than what they are now. Tragedy requires a fall; but there can be no fall without continuity of person. If zombies are tragic figures, then we must think that it is the very same individuals who were once our neighbors that are now out to gnaw on our entrails.
WILLIAM S. LARKIN
"Res Corporealis: Persons, Bodies, and Zombies", Zombies, Vampires, and Philosophy: New Life for the Undead
If humans do not fight back and all people do end up being infected by the undead ... it would take roughly 20 days before the zombies themselves die from starvation or thirst. This is, of course, if the zombies end up requiring sustenance just like any other living organism. Otherwise, once the human race is effectively wiped out, the world would simply be a planet filled from end to end with the undead. With the results of this study in mind, it would seem that the zombie apocalypse, if ever it does happen, would be extremely fast, terrifying and for all intents and purposes, hopeless.
SIMON ALVAREZ
"Zombie Apocalypse 2017: Real Life 'The Walking Dead' Scenario Unlikely, Humans To Be Extinct In 100 Days, Says UK Study", Inquisitr, January 5, 2017
A father's only dream is to hear his daughter ask to kill some zombies. Go for it, sweetie. Make this old man proud.
TAHNEE FRITZ
The Human Race
Bottom line: what should humanity do when the zombie plague arrives? Obviously, pick up something resembling a weapon and start hacking.
RYAN HARRIS
"The Zombies are Coming! Can Humanity Prevail?", Mirror Daily, January 8, 2017
It doesn't take much to please a zombie. Just feed them. Regularly.
STEPHEN & FIONNUALA BLACK
"At Least You Know Where You Stand With A Zombie", Fractured Faith Blog
Zombies apparently must possess some level of memory and learning to navigate through out world, and the limit to their developmental abilities may be related to their sleeping habits. A study from Harvard University strongly suggests that sleep enhances memory and learning in humans. If, as many believe, the undead never actually rest in their constant search for fresh meat, a zombie's inability to develop new skills may have much more to do with its insomnia than with its actual potential to learn.
MATT MOGK
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies
I hate zombies. I know that sound prejudiced. I'm sure some zombies are really nice to kittens and love their parents. But it's been my experience that most are not the kind of people you want sending you friend requests.
JAMES PONTI
Dead City
I hope zombies are able to find love someday, hopefully it will detract from their thirst for brains.
LILY HORNER
"Woman disillusioned with men, turns to monsters for love", The Miscellany News, February 15, 2017
Some international relations scholars would posit that interest in zombies is an indirect attempt to get a cognitive grip on what U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously referred to as the "unknown knowns" in international security. Perhaps, however, there also exists a genuine but publicly unacknowledged fear of the dead rising from the grave and feasting upon the entrails of the living.
DANIEL W. DREZNER
Theories of International Politics and Zombies
Zombies can't believe the energy we waste on nonfood pursuits.
PATTON OSWALT
Zombie Spaceship Wasteland
A zombie crawls through the forest. When it reaches a good spot, it freezes in place. A stalk slowly grows from its head. The stalk then spews out spores that spread, turning others into zombies. This is no Halloween story about the zombie apocalypse. It's all true. The zombie isn't a human, though. It's an ant. And the stalk that emerges from its head is a fungus. Its spores infect other ants, which lets the zombie cycle begin anew.
KATHRYN HULICK
"Zombies are real!", Science News for Students, October 27, 2016
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.
SETH GRAHAME-SMITH
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Society's current obsession with zombies should come as no surprise, as the walking dead are, in a certain sense, real. Rather than simply being born in the mind of an inventive Gothic novelist or developed over time on the page or the stage, the zombie has its noteworthy origins in what to most in the West would be considered reality. Vampires, reanimated golems, and ghosts can be traced back to specific literary traditions, and even the werewolf has arguably just become a variation on Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). The zombie, on the other hand, comes from Haitian folklife, nonfiction accounts, and travel narratives of bodies "raised from the dead to labor in the fields."
KYLE WILLIAM BISHOP
How Zombies Conquered Popular Culture: The Multifarious Walking Dead in the 21st Century
When fighting zombies, the only comfort one can have--if, indeed, it can be called a "comfort"--is knowing where the zombies are. "They are over there, and we are over here. When they come at us, we're going to shoot them down. That's how it's going to work. They're just zombies, and they're way over there. No way are we going to f*** this up." But when zombies then unexpectedly pop up behind you--Bam!--the whole battle plan's not so cut and dried, is it, Mr. Tough Guy?
SCOTT KENEMORE
The Art of Zombie Warfare: How to Kick Ass Like the Walking Dead
I suppose I knew on an intellectual level that graves weren't especially made for getting out of. I mean, you start with a hermetically sealed casket and then you dump six feet of dirt on top of it. Over time the earth gets compacted, which can't make it easy to dig through. So even if you're a very angry and determined zombie, you've kind of got your work cut out for you just escaping from the grave.
C.E. MURPHY
Walking Dead
A real-life zombie outbreak would be so severe that it would spread at a rate faster than the Black Death.
SIMON ALVAREZ
"Zombie Apocalypse 2017: Real Life 'The Walking Dead' Scenario Unlikely, Humans To Be Extinct In 100 Days, Says UK Study", Inquisitr, January 5, 2017
You can get in some pretty intense arguments with people about what does or does not count as a zombie. Unless you take a step back and acknowledge that, as imaginary constructions, zombies are under no obligation to conform to a set of prescribed rules, you can end up in the world's dumbest fistfight.
ROBERT DAVID STACEY
lecture to The Department of English, University of Ottawa, "Zombies! A Talk on Zombies", March 15, 2018
Zombies do not dominate our culture because humans need another villain to kill with machetes and machine guns. (There are ample enemies and threats to go around right now.) Rather, zombies are popular because humans know a good thing when they see it. Zombies are, in their way, perfectly suited to navigate difficult times. They are imperturbable as Zen masters. They are, verily, the last and best hope -- for themselves, and maybe for us too.
SCOTT KENEMORE
The Ultimate Book of Zombie Warfare and Survival: A Combat Guide to the Walking Dead
If the vampire is a serial killer who stalks his victims one by one, the zombie, on the other hand, belongs to the world of mass shootings.... The zombie horde is a killing mass, but in the lone gunman dispatching scores of hapless victims in a single session we find a model of the apocalyptic survivor whose capacity for massive violence is transformed within that fantasy into a virtue.
ROBERT DAVID STACEY
lecture to The Department of English, University of Ottawa, "Zombies! A Talk on Zombies", March 15, 2018