“I am one of them, said Magenta. "Their poison went deep into my body. Sometimes I feel so contaminated, I feel I am not born to this world.”

“Don't speak to me about nature. I have no love for her. I feel and see only death. Even your beauty wilts and perishes before my eyes with the decay of time. I feel it building in momentum each passing day with sickening acceleration. It will not slow, and everything is lost within its great hunger. It makes all that is now a pleasure a bitter pain, knowing it is all to be lost in the end.”

“...nothing is taken that cannot be found again... (Tree of Life)”

“Hey, uh, you know. Um. If you’re alive, uh, call me." I looked at the screen and said, "It's Jane." I closed the phone, thinking, Lame. I am so lame.”

“Perhaps in body I am not quite as real as you,” he said, then looked alive, making him once again seem real, even though she knew that if she tried to touch him, she could not. “But my thoughts and emotions are as real as yours. My soul, Mia Randall, is as real as yours.”

“I would give,” he said, his voice rough, “everything I am to keep you from being hurt.”

“Jodi in tactical gear was something to behold. Pert, a lot shorter than I am, blond hair tucked under a helmet, cinched into body armor never intended to mold to the body of a curvy woman. Ugly but efficient attire. Someone needs to talk to armor designers about female body shapes and style.”