“As he got older, Billy suspected, he would, Dicaprio-like, simply become like an increasingly wizened child.”

“It felt like being a child again, though it was not. Being a child is like nothing. It's only being. Later, when we think about it, we make it into youth.”

“When he had first started at the center, he had liked to think that he was unexpectedly cool-looking for such a job. Now he knew that he surprised no one, that no one expected scientists to look like scientists anymore.”

“Being a child is like nothing. It's only being. Later, when we think about it, we make it into youth.”

“Someone came in all Starfleet badges today. Not on my shift, sadly.' 'Fascist,' Leon had said. 'Why are you so prejudiced against nerds?''Please,' Billy said. 'That would be a bit self-hating, wouldn't it?''Yeah, but you pass. You're like, you're in deep cover,' Leon said. 'You can sneak out of the nerd ghetto and hide the badge and bring back food and clothes and word of the outside world.”

“The choice not to have sex, not to be hurt. The choice not to risk pregnancy. And then... what if she had become pregnant? The choice not to abort? The choice not to have a child?”

“...he had known that the endless space below him that stretched out like a maw was exactly that: a mouth the size of the world, straining to swallow him.”