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

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

At least one thing was consistent about her life: It just kept on getting more complicated.

It's amazing how quickly nature consumes human places after we turn our backs on them. Life is a hungry thing.

I spilled more times than a glass of milk on a roller coaster.

And a special thanks for not burning up the whole ship. Including yourself, you daft bum-rag.

I guess sometimes you have to lie to find the truth.

Perhaps the logical conclusion of everyone looking the same is everyone thinking the same.

Maybe she still was a pretty-head, making up irrational stories about the empty forest. The longer she stayed alone out here, the more Tally understood why the Rusties and their predecessors had believed in invisible beings, praying to placate spirits as they trashed the natural world around them.

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.

She needed Andrew Simpson Smith, it was that simple. And he had spent his life training to help people like her. Gods. "Okay, Andrew. But let's leave today. I'm in a hurry.""Of course. Today." He stroked the place where his slight beard was beginning to grow. "These ruins where your friends are waiting? Where are they?"Tally glances up at the sun, still low enough to indicate the eastern horizon. After a moment's calculation, she pointed off to the northwest, back toward the city and beyond that, the Rusty Ruins. "About a week's walk that way." "A week?""That means seven days.""Yes, I know the gods' calendar," he said huffily. "But a whole week?""Yeah. That's not so far, is it?" The hunters had been tireless on their march the night before. He shook his head, an awed expression on his face. "But that is beyond the edge of the world.

You're insane!" she shouted."Pretty cool, huh?""No!"Tally yelled. "Why didn't you tell me it was broken?"Shay shrugged. "More fun that way?""More fun?" Her heart beating fast,her vision strangely clear. She was full of anger and relief and...joy."Well, kind of. But you suck!

The Rusty Ruins were the remains of an old city, a hulking reminder of back when there'd been way too many people, and everyone was incredibly stupid. And ugly.

Good books make you ask questions. Bad readers want everything answered.

Maybe human beings are programmed … to help one another, even to fall in love. But just because it's human nature doesn't make it bad, Tally. Besides, we had a whole city of pretties to choose from, and we chose each other.

Maybe this was how you stayed sane in wartime: a handful of noble deeds amid the chaos.

Alek said, "Do you think I'm being a fool?" "I think you're trying to do something good. But doing good is rarely easy, and no weapon has ever stopped a war.

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.

Surely no one would ever use such a weapon against a city.""There are no limits in war," Volger said, still staring out the window.

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

That Shay was in possesion of hand grenades was a comforting thought showed what kind of night this had become.

You see, freedom has a way of destroying things.

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; they strangled.

What did a happy ending even mean in real life, anyway? In stories you simply said, 'They lived happily ever after,' and that was it. But in real life people had to keep on living, day after day, year after year.

What you do, the way you think, makes you beautiful.

And the worst thing was, there were no mirrors out there in the wild, so the princess was left wondering whether she in fact was still beautiful... or if the fall had changed the story completely.

You look beautiful - David

...I want those perfect eyes and lips, and for everyone to look at me and gasp. And for everyone who sees me to think Who's that? and want to get to know me, and listen to what I say.""I'd rather have something to say.

But you weren't born expecting that kind of beauty in everyone, all the time. You just got programmed into thinking anything else is ugly.

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

...humanity is a disease, a cancer on the body of the world.

Now,young lady,I suppose you're here for a work assignment."Work?" Tally said.They both looked down at her puzzled expression, and Shay burst into laughter.

It’s amazing how quickly nature consumes human places after we turn our backs on them. Life is a hungry thing.

The very idea of making shoes by hand boggled her mind.

When she awoke, the world was on fire.

Shay sometimes talked in a mysterious way, like she was quoting the lyrics of some band no one else listened to.

With everything so perfect, reality seemed somehow fragile, as if the slightest interruption could imperil her pretty future... all of it felt as tenuous as a soap bubble, shivering and empty.

Tally smiled. At least she was causing trouble to the end. "I'm Tally Youngblood," she said. "make me pretty.

Do you love him?”Deryn swallowed, then pointed at the screen. “He makes me feel like that. Like flying.”“Then, you have to tell him.”“I told you, I kissed him!”“It’s hardly the same. I kissed you, after all. That wasn’t love, Mr. Sharp.”“Aye, and what exactly was it?”“Curiosity.” Lilit smiled. “And as I said, you’re quite a dashing boy.”“But I’m pretty sure Alek doesn’t want a dashing boy!”“You can’t be sure until you ask.”Deryn shook her head. “You were raised to throw bombs. I wasn’t.”“Were you raised to wear trousers and be a soldier?

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

What if destiny doesn't care?

The universe is math on fire.

First love is amazing and wonderful, but a kind of panic underlies it, a sense of not knowing what you're doing.

Maybe that was the price of loving someone: you lost your grasp of where they ended and you began.

And I kind of love it that you want to know everything.

...this is life. Right here in this room, with you, is life.

You don't know what it's like, when your best friend disappears.

Looking for a thousand years is worth it, if in the end you find what you need.

More lies, but maybe lies were better than the truth.

But I feel more real when I'm around her. Like I'm not fading.

The best way to know a city is to eat it.

We're not freaks, Tally. We're normal. We may not be gorgeous, but at least we're not hyped-up Barbie dolls.

Your father always suspected that being pretty-minded is simply the natural state for most people. They want to be vapid and lazy and vain—Maddy glanced at Tally—and selfish. It only takes a twist to lock in that part of their personalities. He always thought that some people could think their way out of it.

Some mornings when I wake up, it takes a long time to remember who I am. Like, it takes a while for everything that's happened in last month to download into my brain. It's nice, not knowing. Even if it's just for five minutes.

That's the worst thing they do to you, to any of you. Whatever those brain lesions are all about, the worst damage is done before they even pick up the knife: You're all brainwashed into believing you're ugly.

Sure, zombies can “be a metaphor.” They can represent the oppressed, as in Land of the Dead, or humanity’s feral nature, as in 28 Days. Or racial politics or fear of contagion or even the consumer unconscious (Night of the Living Dead, Resident Evil, Dawn of the Dead). We could play this game all night.But really, zombies are not “supposed to be metaphors.” They’re supposed to be friggin’ zombies. They follow the Zombie Rules: they rise from death to eat the flesh of the living, they shuffle in slow pursuit (or should, anyway), and most important, they multiply exponentially. They bring civilization down, taking all but the most resourceful, lucky and well-armed among us, whom they save for last. They make us the hunted; all of us.That’s the stuff zombies are supposed to do. Yes, they make excellent symbols, and metaphors, and have kick-ass mythopoeic resonance to boot. But their main job is to follow genre conventions, to play with and expand the Zombie Rules, to make us begin to see the world as a place colored by our own zombie contingency plans.

Most men's awareness doesn't extend past their dinner plates.

I'm not the one going for a biology degree. I'm just a philosophy major who eats people.

The Shrink always warned me that carriers stay wracked with lifelong guilt. It's not an uplifting thing having turned lovers into monsters. We feel bad that we haven't turned into monsters ourselves--survivor's guilt, that's called. And we feel a bit stupid that we didn't notice our own symptoms earlier. I mean, I'd been sort of wondering why the Atkins diet was giving me night vision. But that hadn't seemed like something to worry about...

The man was allergic to sleep.

She couldn't disappoint the whole village. There were no wallscreens here, no newsfeeds or satellites bands, and touring soccer teams were no doubt few and far between. (...), that made stories a valuable commodity, and it probably wasn't very often that a stranger dropped in from the sky.

As Melissa got closer, the taste of school began to foul her mouth.

You don't look very happy."Tally tried to smile. David had shared his biggest secret with her; she should tell him hers. But she wasn't brave enough to say the words. "It's been a long night. That's all."He smiled back. "Don't worry, it won't last forever.

Assisted him? Dylan made the repairs. I only fell and hit my head, from what I can recall. Yes, I make excellent deadweight.

Left alone, human beings are a plague. They multiply relentlessly, consuming every resource, destroying everything they touch.

The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit. Of course, Tally thought, you’d have to feed your cat only salmon-flavored cat food for a while, to get the pinks right.

All that glitters is not hovery.

Tally wondered if you could talk somebody out of their brain damage.

Once we turn, it’s new pretty, middle pretty, late pretty.” Shay dropped her arms, and her board stopped drifting. “Then dead pretty.

Her only way home was to betray her friend.

Barking hard work, being a boy.

History would indicate that the majority of people have always been sheep.

Deryn put her own arms around herself, but it didn't feel the same."Barking spiders," she muttered softly,

I can’t imagine anything worse than being required to have fun.

The lie took form as she spoke, pulling on as many strands of truth as it could reach.

A milli-Helen is enough beauty to launch exactly one ship

Weird, even for one of us. Or maybe she's worse.""Worse how?""Normal.

I'm a girl."When Deryn opened her eyes, the lady boffin was staring at her with no change of expression. "Indeed," she

Maybe they’re not as mindless as we thought, or so dedicated to turning every last human into one of them. Like Kalyn says, they were just bored, waiting for something better to happen.And that better thing is us.

I love my virginity to the apocalypse.

God, you mean I lost my virginity to the apocalypse?"Morgan sighed again. "The whole thing was really embarrassing; my parents sent me to Brooklyn when they found out." She shrugged. "I thought I’d be safe in a gay bar, okay? What were you doing in there anyway?"Lace looked at me sidelong. "You were where?"I took a sip of beer, swallowed it. "I, uh, hadn’t been in the city...very long. I didn’t know.