“For how many generations now had his people been turning their backs on things? How long had they sat in their living rooms and watched other people die?”

“The older generation sat looking at the younger, and Kat wondered exactly when and how the baton had been passed. She wanted to know if it was too late to give it back.”

“How many shots had to be fired to turn this child back to his home and anxious mother?”

“That was how things were back then. Anything that grew took its time growing, and anything that perished took a long time to be forgotten. But everything that had once existed left its traces, and people lived on memories just as they now live on the ability to forget quickly and emphatically.”

“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.”

“The odd thing about people who had many books was how they always wanted more.”