“Do you really want to know where we come from?" she said. "In every century, in every country, they'll call us something different. They'll say we're ghosts, angels, demons, elemental spirits, and giving us a name doesn't help anybody. When did a name change what someone is?”
“When did a name ever change what someone is?”
“You presume to name those who have no name. We are pandemonium and disaster. We are the dancing, gibbering horror of the world.”
“He knew how useless words could be. How even when you wanted more than anything just to hear someone say they understood, it didn’t make you feel better. Not really.”
“The treachery of demons is nothing compared to the betrayal of an angel.”
“The way Lillian says it is hungry, like she’s waiting for something to be revealed, and I wonder if maybe that’s the real difference between us—that when she pulls back the curtain and stares into the blackness behind it, it’s just one more way of testing herself. Like some game you can never win, because even if you face all the shocking realities and the horrors of the world, once you’ve seen that kind of awfulness, you can never un-see it. You have to carry it around with you forever.”
“There are all kinds of things that can scare you every day. What if someone you know gets cancer? What if something happens to you sister or your friends or your parents? And what if you get hit by a car crossing the street or the kids at school find out what an unnatural freak you are and what if you go too far out in the lake and the water is over your head and what if there's a fire or a war?And you can lie awake at night and worry about these things because it's scary and unpredictable, but it's REAL. It's possible."-Mackie Doyle, The Replacement”