“The human heart is a strange vessel. Love and hatred can exist side by side.”

“Its amazing how quickly nature consumes human places after we turn our backs on them. Life is a hungry thing.”

“I'd watched too many schoolmates graduate into mental institutions, into group homes and jails, and I knew that locking people up was paranormal - against normal, not beside it. Locks didn't cure; ...”

“Nature didn't need an operation to be beautiful. It just was.”

“Ignorance doesn't lead to salvation, nor does knowledge pave the way to sin. - Cinda Williams Chima”

“I expect that you must receive top marks at school, young lady."Madeleine smiled as she stirred her tea. "There are always rewards for those who state the obvious frequently and with conviction.”

“Do you love him?"Deryn swallowed, then pointed at the screen. "He makes me feel like that. Like flying.”

“That was the trick - to keep punching, no matter what.”

“That was the trick - to keep punching, no matter what.”

“We fly, but we have not 'conquered' the air. Nature presides in all her dignity, permitting us the study and the use of such of her forces as we may understand. It is when we presume to intimacy, h...”

“People have to forgive. We don't have to like them, we don't have to be friends with them, we don't have to send them hearts in text messages, but we have to forgive them, to overlook, to forget. B...”

“Q: You'er presented with a smooth-faced, eight-foot-high wooden wall. Your objective? Get over it. To, like, save comrades or something. How to accomplish this?A: Take a running start, brace one fo...”

“He thinks Goliath can end the war," Alek managed at last. "The man wants peace!" "As do we all," Count Volger said. "But there are many ways to end a war. Some are more peaceful than others.”

“No matter how far from the war we run, it always catches up with us.”

“Smallness is subversive, because smallness can creep into smaller places and wreak transformation at the most vulnerable, cellular level. In a time when largeness is threatening to topple us, I wis...”