Alas, Babylon: A Novel (Harper Perennial Olive Edition)

As long as people keep talking they’re not fighting. When Moscow quits talking, I’m afraid they’re acting.”

Fort Repose’s financial structure crumbled in a day.

“As Chief Executive of the United States, and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, I hereby declare a state of unlimited national emergency until such time as new elections are held, and Congress reconvenes.

Dan had evolved a barter system for his services.

She watched the transformation in their faces. They had been grim, determined, irritated. Suddenly, they were only frightened.

be followed. At the corner a scrawny boy of eighteen urinated against a lamp post,

The guests were milling around in the lobby like first-class passengers on a liner that has struck an iceberg, and that they suspect may founder at any moment.

One of the men had a billfold in his hand and was waving money before Jerry’s eyes.

Most families had somehow managed to obtain and conserve a few gallons of gasoline. It was their link with a mobile past, insurance of mobility in some emergency of the future. Sickness and injury were emergencies for which they would gladly dip into their liquid reserve.