“We were pressed against each other, a husband and wife bound together not by marriage, but by the harmony of our hearts. Death could not undo us, I'd learned. My hamsar was with me still. He would ...”

“But war had a taming effect”

“What he wanted to say was that two thousand years of peace could be undone in a month of war.”

“To be around family is to feel the possibility of growing roots again.”

“An entire lifetime can change in one afternoon. The rest of the world can continue on, unaware of a quiet, solitary cataclysm occurring a few feet away.”

“He believes that people have destroyed religion and religion has destroyed people. He says he believes in God, but he doesn't believe in people.”

“But war had a taming effect”

“Writers aren't exactly people.... They're a whole bunch of people trying to be one person.”

“Theres a loneliness that only exists in ones mind. The loneliest moment in someones life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is blink.”

“I refuse to believe that were going to go through life without something magical happening”

“Ambiades, I realized, was the kind of person who liked to put people in a hierarchy, and he wanted me to understand that I was at the bottom of his. He was supposed to treat me politely in spite of...”

“I refuse to believe that we’re going to go through life without something magical happening”

“What do you think my chances might be of finding a soul mate in the group of you? I'll be lucky if I can just find someone who'll be able to stand me for the rest of our lives. What if I've already...”

“There were a group of people before the Ascension known as the Astalsi. They claimed that each person was born with a certain finite amount of ill luck. And so, when an unfortunate event happened, ...”

“Well, good luck, the Vietnam verbal tic...It was as though people couldnt stop themselves from saying it, even when they actually meant to express the opposite wish, like, Die, motherfucker. Usuall...”