“They are surprisingly tall--eight-year-olds. They are surprisingly like real people. Of course your own babies are always real to you, they are all there from the word go, but even strangers' children look like proper people by the aged of eight...”

“My characters surprise me constantly. My characters are like my friends - I can give them advice, but they don't have to take it. If your characters are real, then they surprise you, just like real people.”

“The real food in Ag 6 looked like old people before aging-reversal treatments.”

“He was shorter than an average eight-year-old boy but exceptionally tall for a tulip.”

“Peter, you're twelve years old. I'm ten. They have a word for people our age. They call us children and they treat us like mice.”

“Did people ever stop changing? They surprised you with fresh pain. Sometimes they surprised you with happiness, but the pain was the sharper surprise. There was no way to protect yourself from it. People could always change and always hurt you. Of course it went in the other direction too, you could hurt them when you didn't intend it and that too was out of your control.”