Dan Wells

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

“None of this is by accident, and we have to figure out what it all means. She paused. We have to. It's the same old argument I used to have with Mkele: the present or the future. Sometimes you have to put the present through hell to get the future you want.”

“It's not enough, is it? Just to follow; just to have faith in someone bigger and smarter and better informed. That's how we're built, that's how every Partial is wired - to follow orders and trust in our leaders - but it's not enough. It never has been. We've followed our leaders, and sometimes they win and sometimes they lose; we do what they say and we play our part. But this is our decision. Our mission. And when we're done, it will be our victory, or our defeat. I don't want to fail, but if I do, I want to be able to look back and say, 'I did that. I failed. That was all me.”

“It's just one thing after another. Cars that won't run. Planes that will never fly again. Computer systems we can barely use, let alone re-create. It's like...time is flowing backward. We're caveman archeologists in the ruins of the future.”

“I'd made a long list of exceptions to cover the area between "ignoring her completely" and "abducting her at knifepoint.”

“Your life is defined by death, and each time you face it you grow stronger. You learn more, and feel more. It sounds stupid to say it like this, but not dying makes you more alive.”

“Hope is not a strategy,” said Kira.“It’s not plan A,” said Jayden, “and it shouldn’t be plan B, but it is every plan C that has ever been made.”

“The old world had been consumed with the search for More Stuff. Now there was more stuff than anyone could ever use, and little or none of anything else.”

“Just because someone’s in charge of something doesn’t mean they’re in charge of everything.”

“You make your own choices, Kira, and you can’t let anyone ever take that away from you.”

“Freedom is a responsibility to be earned, not a license for recklessness and anarchy. If someday, despite our strongest efforts and our deepest determination, we finally fall, let it be because our enemies finally beat us, not because we beat ourselves.”

“It's not John who wants to cut his mother into tiny pieces, it's Mr. Monster. See? I feel better already.”

“This book is dedicated to the rule breakers, the troublemakers, and the revolutionaries.Sometimes the hand that feeds you needs a good bite.”

“I guess all we have left are awesome dreams.”

“The last to fall were the buildings, distant and solemn, the gravestones for an entire world.”

“We're not talking about pitching in, we're talking about institutionalized rape. We're talking about the government taking full control over your body--what it's for, what you do with it, and what other people can do to it. I'm not letting some horny old dude screw me just because the law says I have to. - Xochi”

“I wanted everything to stay the same, but you wanted things to be better, it's just...going to be a whole lot worse for awhile first. And I think I knew that, and I was scared of it." - Marcus”

“I'm going to cure RM." Marcus laughed. "I wondered when someone would finally get around to that. It's been on my to-do list for ages, but you know how things are: Life gets so busy, and saving the human race is such an inconvenience.”

“The most important thing you can ever know, is that whatever your purpose is, that's not your only choice.”

“Hello, Kanta. They're saying interesting things about you on the news," she said. "I wondered if you'd survived.""He didn't," I said. "I killed him."Silence."I killed Mkhai, too," I said. "Tens of thousands of years, gone in the blink of an eye.""Why are you telling me this?" asked the voice."Because you're next," I said. "I'm the demon slayer. Come and get me.”

“Sometimes the hand that feeds you needs a good bite.”

“Curing RM is in the realm of magical pixies and talking dogs that piss whiskey. It's impossible.”

“Here was something that I did all the time, and thought nothing of it, and it turns out the rest of the world thinks it's completely reprehensible. That's when I knew I needed to change, so I started making rules. The first one was; Don't mess with animals.”

“Jayden laughed grimly. 'Press the attack and hope for the best.''Hope is not a strategy,' said Kira'It's not plan A,' said Jayden, 'and it shouldn't be plan B, but it is every plan C that has ever been made.”

“Dead bodies are calm and silent—perfectly still, perfectly harmless. A corpse will never move, it will never laugh, and it will never judge. A corpse will never shout at you, hit you, or leave you. Far away from the zombies and junk that you see on TV, a corpse is actually the perfect friend. The perfect pet. I feel more comfortable with them than I do with real people.”

“Love's not the point. We just do what we always do, and we get by.”

“Please help me, I begged her silently. "I'm fine." I'm not fine, and I am going to kill someone, and I don't know if I'll be able to stop "I'm fine, let's go back.”

“Fear is about things that you can't control. The future or the dark, or someone trying to kill you. You don't get scared of yourself because you always know what you're going to do.”

“Fear is a ... it's a weird thing, when you think about it. People are only afraid of other things, they're never afraid of themselves.”

“Exposure to nature - cold, heat, water - is the most dehumanizing way to die. Violence is passionate and real - the final moments as you struggle for your life, firing a gun or wrestling a mugger or screaming for help, your heart pumps loudly and your body tingles with energy; you are alert and awake and, for that brief moment, more alive and human than you've ever been before. Not so with nature.At the mercy of the elements the opposite happens: your body slows, your thoughts grow sluggish, and you realize just how mechanical you really are. Your body is a machine, full of tubes and valves and motors, of electrical signals and hydraulic pumps, and they function properly only within a certain range of conditions. As temperatures drop, your machine breaks down. Cells begin to freeze and shatter; muscles use more energy to do less; blood flows too slowly, and to the wrong places. Your sense fade, your core temperature plummets, and your brain fires random signals that your body is too weak to interpret or follow. In that stat you are no longer a human being, you are a malfunction - an engine without oil, grinding itself to pieces in its last futile effort to complete its last meaningless task.”

“The monster behind the wall stirred. I'd come to think of it as a monster, but it was just me. Or the darker part of me, at least. You probably think it would be creepy to have a real monster hiding inside of you, but trust me - it's far, far worse when the monster is really just your own mind. Calling it a monster seemed to distance it a little, which made me feel better about it. Not much better, but I take what I can get.”

“Skousen remembered a world falling apart. Kira remembered a world pulling together to save itself. That was the difference. That was why Skousen and the Senate were too afraid to do what it took to solve this. If it was going to get done, it would have to be the plague babies who did it.”

“I've never been this wet in my life, " said Kira. "Even immersed in a bathtub I swear I was dryer than I am now. ""Look on the bright side, " said Marcus. Kira waited. "This is the point at which you would traditionally suggest a bright side. ""I've never been a real traditional guy," said Marcus. "Besides, I'm not saying I know a bright side, I just think this would be a great time to look at one.”

“If I'm going to spend the whole night waiting for you guys to stop flirting and shoot each other, I want to at least be entertained.”

“Brooke thought no one could see her. I thought she was beautiful.”

“It wasn't my mom at all, it was her sister Margaret - they were twins, and when their faces were masked I could barely tell the difference. Margaret's voice was a little lighter, though, a little more...energetic. I figured it was because she'd never been married.”

“If you can't know the truth, said Isolde, live the most awesome lie you can think off.”

“I'd like to think humans have a stronger sense of justice than the random forces of nature do.”

“Life comes from death, and weakness teaches us strength.”

“There are some things more important than ourselves - more important than the limits of the present, and the whims of the now. There is a future to build and protect. And if we're going to make that future as reality, we have to stop fighting among ourselves. We have to end dissent whenever we find it. We have to trust one another again.”

“[...] Mom’s not keeping me out because it’s a dead friend, she’s keeping me out because it’s a dead sixteen-year-old girl with no clothes on’‘And that’s officially the creepiest thing you’ve ever said,’ said Lauren. She stopped typing, and then grimaced and shivered, like she’d just eaten something disgusting. ‘Seriously – yuck.’I smiled. ‘I’ve got a live girlfriend – what do I need a dead one for?’[…]Lauren folded her arms. ‘How do I know you’re not just trying to get her out of the house for your own nefarious purposes?’I smiled. ‘What kind of trouble am I going to get into? The dead girl doesn’t get here until tomorrow.”

“Well, thanks for not shooting anyone, I guess", said Marcus. "My contribution was to somehow refrain from peeing myself. You can thank me later.”

“I need a sample of your blood,' said Kira.Marcus raised an eyebrow. 'I didn't know we'd reached that stage of our relationship.”

“Hockey,' mused Marcus. 'The sport of kings.”

“I am stronger than my trials.”

“Mother of mercy,"said Tovar."And that caused the riot?""It's the other way around,"said Kira sheepishly."We started the riot as a distraction for the jaibreak."Tovar whistled."You don't mess aroud."P303”

“I can't imagine you not saying a word," said Marcus."I think you'd go crazy first.”

“It's good to see you," Said Haru."You can see me?" asked Marcus, patting himself in sudden shock."The potion must have worn off! That's the last time I give my lunch to a talking squirrel".P12”

“I didn’t study medicine to watch people die." -Kira”

“Sow a thought and reap an action, sow an action and reap a habit, sow a habit and reap a destiny - John Cleaver”