“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.”

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

“I love my virginity to the apocalypse.”

“What if destiny doesn't care?”

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

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

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

“The difference between being a part-time writer and a full-time writer is like the difference between dating someone and living with them. Some of the romance is gone, but you learn things you'd never know just by dating.”

“I've learned a lot about stage-managing for illustration. Sometimes you have to delete characters from a scene just to keep from overcrowding the image. I've also learned to making big-scale design decisions early.”

“I wouldn't say design has become strictly functional. A lot of cars these days look downright comic book to me, and the info-gadgets with which late industrial people spend the most time - phones, music players, etc. - are blobjects.”

“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.”