“The Hegemony had known how to treat cancer, but most of the gene-tailoring knowledge and technology had been lost after the Fall.”

“Unexpected Elizabeth wasn’t falling into his arms as he’d anticipated, even after he had acted heroic and been valiantly injured. Perhaps he had lost her.”

“But she had known, better than anyone else, what demons he had faced, had known how hard he had fought to free himself from them. That he had lost the fight in the end made the struggle no less honorable.”

“She didn’t believe there was anything like perfect, fairytale love. Most people were flawed and prone to mistakes. She thought herself a romantic but treated love with the same practicality she did most things. They’d had fall-outs and misunderstandings but she’d never been free to be herself like she was with Edward. She couldn’t imagine being with another person after him.”

“I'd been blindsided with the most painful knowledge: the first man to ever say he loved me had never loved me at all. His passion had been artificial. His pursuit of me had been choreographed.”

“They had been brought up to think that the domestic virtues were self-evident and universal; they had been starved of the knowledge that most attracts the young mind: that the crown of life is the exercise of choice”