“The light, the sky, the water, they were all things you looked *through* during the day. At night, they were things you looked *into*. You looked *into* the stars, you looked *into* dark rollers and the surprising platinum flash of their caps.”

“The key to fighting in the dark is no different: you had to perceive your opponent, sense him, and never use your imagination. The darkness inside your head is something your imagination fills with stories that have nothing to do with the real darkness around you.”

“She was a believer, you know," the Captain said. "My wife. She thought socialism was the only thing that would make us strong again. There would be a difficult period, she always said, some sacrifices. And then things would be better. I didn't think I would miss that, you know. I didn't realize how much I needed someone to keep telling me why.”

“And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night... You, only you, will have stars that can laugh at night...”

“Today, tomorrow," she said. "A day is nothing. A day is just a match you strike after the ten thousand matches before it have gone out.”

“Real stories like this, human ones, could get you sent to prison, and it didn’t matter what they were about. It didn’t matter if the story was about an old woman or a squid attack—if it diverted emotion from the Dear Leader, it was dangerous.”

“I'm a Cancer, you know," I tell her. "So it's hard for me to talk. And I have all these weird dreams, not the ones with the Sony Girls - ha-ha - but mostly where I mow the lawn. Sometimes I just wash the car, like Gupta! But there's this voice in my head, and Lt. Kim thinks that once we get it to go away, I'll stop worrying that the good things in life are destined to fail, like you and me. But I'm up in this satellite dish, and I'm thinking: what if this is the voice that still believes things can be okay, that believes in good and warns me from bad? It wants to protect me, just like the United Nations.”