“I will never fully understand why things happen the way they do on this planet. Too many people hold their tongue here. Too many people hide their true feelings. And at the end of the day, that does nothing but hurt someone. The men and women of Tamaran were always taught to live by their emotions, to trust that first reaction, as it is the most pure. Cyborg argues that you need time to make the proper decision. I argue that time blurs the true intent. To Earth standards, I may appear brash and rushed. I never hide what I think. Perhaps that is why Tamaran was a target for so many invasions. Our captors may have enjoyed seeing what pain they inflicted upon us, for our tears were never hidden either.”
“If we might be able to save this world, how can we walk away? Too many people around here have given up! Galloran said heroes sacrifice for causes; they do things that others hide from. I may not be some great hero, but I won’t hide from this. I would never live with myself.”
“There are more stars than there are people. Billions, Alan had said, and millions of them might have planets just as good as ours. Ever since I can remember, I’ve felt too big. But now I felt small. Too small. Too small to count. Every star is massive, but there are so many of them. How could anyone care about one star when there were so many spare? And what if stars were small? What if all the stars were just pixels? And earth was less than a pixel? What does that make us? And what does that make me? Not even dust. I felt tiny. For the first time in my life I felt too small.”
“Too many people get away with truly awful ‘reasoning’, not because what they are arguing happens to be true, but because they are in the majority.”
“Happy? Most of the time? Happiness is always a fleeting thing," he said, "It never rests upon anyone as a permanent state, though many of us persist in believing in the foolish idea that if this would just happen or that we would be happy for the rest of our lives. I know moments of happiness just as most other people do. Perhaps I have learned to find it in ways that would pass some people by. I feel the summer heat here at this moment and see the trees and the water and hear that invisible gull overhead. I feel the novelty of having company when I usually come here alone. And this moment brings me happiness.”
“Never, never hide your pain, scream as if you are dying so you will not be harmed more. Never, never hide your poverty, too. The worst enemies of the poor are the poor themselves. And never, never appear that you are virtuous and without sin. It it is the virtuous who have many enemies because for they shame the many without virtue.”