“Even as she'd been writing it, she wondered if she was using too many exclamation marks, but she was glad she left them in. Nothing says "all is good in the world" like exclamation marks, after all.”

“Valkyrie walked to the back door, which hadn't been closed properly, shut it and locked it. There was now a baby in the house, after all. She couldn't take the chance that a wild animal might wander in and make off with Alice, like those dingoes in Australia. She was probably being unfair to both dingoes and Australia, but she couldn't risk it. Locked doors kept the dingoes out, and that's all there was to it, even if she didn't know what a dingo actually was. She took out her phone, searched the Internet, found a picture of a baby dingo and now she really wanted a baby dingo for a pet.”

“Tanith frowned. Did people still go on DATES any more? She was sure they did. They probably called it something different though. She tried to think of the last date she'd been on. The last PROPER date. Did fighting side by side with Saracen Rue count as a date? They ended up snuggling under the moonlight, drenched in gore and pieces of brain - so it had PROBABLY been a date. If it wasn't, it was certainly a fun time had by all. Well, not ALL. But she and Saracen had sure had a blast.”

“Who's your friend?""I'm glad you asked that," said Tanith. "Her name's Darquesse and she's lovely. You'll love her, you really will. She's so funny and nice and she's great to hang out with."Sabine frowned. "Isn't she the one they're saying will destroy the world?""OK, Sabine, for a start, I don't know why you're being so negative about this. How about waiting until you've met her before you start judging her? Think you can do that? Secondly, it's not destroying the world, it's destroying some bits of the world.”

“She's you, without your conscience, or your feelings. She's you without your humanity.""You're saying she's a mood swing?"He shrugged. "Or maybe you're her mood swing.""Don't even joke about that.”

“Just leave her alone. You're annoying her.' 'I'm not annoying her. She doesn't even know how to be annoyed. She's, what, a week old?''She's three months.''She's three months in our years, but what is she in baby years?”

“She had been a teenager once, and she knew that, despite the apparent contradictions, a person's teenage years lasted well into their fifties.”