“Properly speaking, should any individual ever have exact, clear knowledge of his own core consciousness?""I wouldn't know," I said."Nor would we," said the scientists.”

“Howdy, pardner," he said. "Howdy… mad scientist. I don't know any geek-speak, so that's all you're getting.”

“My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists.”

“It was not, of course, a proper thing to do. But then I have never pretended, nor will ever pretend, that Emily was a proper child. Books are not written about proper children. They would be so dull nobody would read them.”

“Sam said, "How do any of us know that anything is real?""We don't," Dodge said."Everything I know is a memory," Sam continued. "Every person I ever met, everything I have ever done. It could all be false. Implanted."It was a staggering thought. What if nothing that had gone before had ever really happened? Was the person he remembered as his mother even real? Had Fargas existed only in his mind?"I think you'd know," Vienna said. "I don't know why, but somehow, I think you'd know.”

“We said we would meet again but we made no arrangements. Not out of any bad feeling between us, but because I felt it had all been said, or not said but understood, and she probably did too. To know she was there was enough, and for her to know I was around was probably too. Sometimes that's all people ever really need. Just to know.”