“Arin, are you all right?""How?" He managed. "How did her arm break?""She fell of a ladder."He must have visibly relaxed, because his cousin raised her brows and looked ready to scold. "I imagined s...”

“I want to know everything about you." So he told her. The stars, too, seemed to listen.”

“Arin. I've wanted to do this for a long time."Her words silenced him, steadied him.Antecipation lifted within her like the fragance of a garden under the rain. She sat at the piano, touching the ke...”

“He told himself a story. Not at first. At first, there wasnt time for thoughts that came in the shape of words. His head was blessedly empty of stories then. War was coming. It was upon him. Arin h...”

“You will be lonely, but you'll become strong.”

“People of the hundred," he said, using an ancient Herrani phrase Arin was surprised he knew, "who leads you?"So many cried Arin's name that it no longer sounded like his name.”

“Its like Im suddenly a hormonally charged teenager or living in a bad romance novel: I suddenly cant stop myself from noticing every man around me. Which means that Darcy, Samantha, and Michael are...”

“It's not my accent, but my brevity makes me stylish.”

“Her accent's funny, different from mine, different from anyone in Prentisstown's. Her lips make different kinds of outlines for the letters, like they're swooping down on them from above, pushing t...”

“She turned to look at him, and he was already looking at her. Im going to miss you when I wake up, she whispered, because she realized that she must have fallen asleep under the sun. Arin was too r...”

“Arin. I've wanted to do this for a long time."Her words silenced him, steadied him.Antecipation lifted within her like the fragance of a garden under the rain. She sat at the piano, touching the ke...”

“He told himself a story. Not at first. At first, there wasnt time for thoughts that came in the shape of words. His head was blessedly empty of stories then. War was coming. It was upon him. Arin h...”

“The sky was a feather blanket of clouds, save for one blue hole in the fabric. A blue cloud in a white sky.”

“Kestrel's cruel calculation appalled her. This was part of what had made her resist the military: the fact that she could make decisions like this, that she did have a mind for strategy, that peopl...”