The Martian Chronicles

grief

• You died, I remember, when you were twenty-six and I was nineteen. Good God, so many years ago, and here you are.

  MCRB-RC-033

• He had found a book of philosophy ten thousand years old. What's the use? I'll sit here reading until they come along and shoot me.

  MCRB-RC-048

trauma-and-survival

• A man doesn't ask too many questions when his mother is suddenly brought back to life; he's much too happy. And here we all are, with no weapons to protect us.

  MCRB-RC-036

• Thousands of bodies. Chicken pox. It did things to the Martians it never did to Earth Men. Burnt them black and dried them out to brittle flakes.

  MCRB-RC-039

belonging

• On occasion a numbness took hold of her and she caught herself singing that odd song and looking out beyond the crystal pillars at the sky.

  MCRB-RC-009

• To get away from wars and censorship and statism and conscription—you could have Earth! He was offering his head and heart for the opportunity to go to Mars.

  MCRB-RC-024