“In the absence of real thunder, he's making his own.”

“He pulled her against his chest, letting her feel his heart thunder its rhythm. Kissing her hair he whispered, the desperation raw, "You are no dream...but flesh and blood. Tell me you are real...oh, please...be real." "Aye, I am real.”

“...and when he thought about the way she laughed, as though she owned the air around her, his heart thundered inside his chest, a lonely rada.”

“No need to steal someone’s thunder, with Cosmic Ordering you can make your own.”

“No eleven-year-old has any real grasp of death. He doesn't have any real concept of other people--that they feel pain, even that they exist. And his own adult future isn't real to him, either. Makes it that much easier to throw away.”

“Richard began to understand darkness: darkness as something solid and real, so much more than a simple absence of light. He felt it touch his skin, questing, moving, exploring: gliding through his mind. It slipped into his lungs, behind his eyes, into his mouth...”