“We fall into each other. All the other voices in my head--the fear, the doubt, the worry--are drowned out. I die at the end of each kiss and am brought gasping back to life at the beginning of the next. I close my eyes and the entire world fades away.”

“I stare at the stars... And even though there are so many and they look so close together, I know they are light years apart. The glitter in the sky looks as if I could scoop it all up in my hands and let the stars swirl and touch one another, but they are so distant, so very far apart, that they cannot feel the warmth of each other, even though they are made of burning.This is the secret of the stars, I tell myself. In the end, we are alone. No matter how close you seem, no one else can touch you.”

“The glitter in the sky looks as if I could scoop it all up in my hands and let the stars swirl and touch one another but they are so distant so very far apart that they cannot feel the warmth of each other even though they are made of burning.”

“He blinks. Touches the side of my face, near my eyes. My eyes that are blue now, not green. With oval irises."I'm still me," I say, because my greatest fear now is that he doesn't want a hybrid Amy.He cocks an eyebrow. "You think I care if your eyes are blue or green? I just care about you." His hand slips down my arm, and he wraps his pinky finger around mine."You came back to me," I say, my voice breaking over unshead tears of joy."I'll always come back to you," he tells me pulling me close.Always.”

“I want her so much that it overrides everything else, every other thought in my head, every instinct, every restraint.”

“I look up, and he’s searching my eyes, just like he did after kissing me for the first time in the rain. “What are you looking for?”He doesn’t answer.He doesn’t need to.I know what he wants.And it’s not fair.“Just because we’re the only two teenagers on this whole ship doesn’t mean I have to love you. Why can’t I have a choice? Options?”Elder steps back, stung.“Look, it’s not that I don’t like you,” I say quickly, reaching for him. He jerks away. “It’s just…”“Just what?” he growls.Just that if I was back on Earth instead of on this damn ship, if I had met Elder at school or at a club or on a blind date, if I had my choice between Elder and every other boy in the world…Would I love him then?Would he love me?Love without choice isn’t love at all.“Just that I don’t want to be with you just because there’s no one else.” [p.57-58]”

“I am as silent as death. Do this: Go to your bedroom. Your nice, safe, warm bedroom that is not a glass coffin behind a morgue door. Lie down on your bed not made of ice. Stick your fingers in your ears. Do you hear that? The pulse of life from your heart, the slow in-and-out from your lungs? Even when you are silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life. Mine is not. It is the silence that drives me mad. The silence that drives the nightmares to me. Because what if I am dead? How can someone without a beating heart, without breathing lungs live like I do? I must be dead. And this is my greatest fear: After 301 years, when they pull my glass coffin from this morgue, and they let my body thaw like chicken meat on the kitchen counter, I will be just like I am now. I will spend all of eternity trapped in my dead body. There is nothing beyond this. I will be locked within myself forever. And I want to scream. I want to throw open my eyes wake up and not be alone with myself anymore, but I can't. I can't.”