“Except for a roll of Harding's eyes, everyone ignored me, which is the way I liked it when I had to hang around with senior officers. They had a way of thinking up ideas that got you killed and them promoted.”

“I followed the sensation,thinking of Lend. What it felt like to hold his hand. Watching him draw.Those precious times when he got to be nothing but himself around me. The way he laughed. The look he got in his eyes when he was about to say something he knew was clever. The way he looked at while I talked, like I was all he had ever wanted in the entire world.”

“I had to grip myself by the wrist not to pitch one good idea after another at them. . . . I writhed with the effort to stay silent. . . . Since Jax's birth my ideas about what would be best for everyone usually got in the way. Life is already an obstacle course, and when you're adding your own impediments (thinking they're helping), you really crazy it up. You make it harder to even just cross the room. You should not bring more items and hurdles to the obstacle course.”

“I rolled my eyes. I had just added jewel thief to my resume and almost got killed by some thug, and all my brother could think of was fancy umbrellas and tropical drinks on a beach.”

“I always think of it like this: Rather than be the sun to someone and light up everything around them, I want to be the moon and light the way just a little in front of them when they are lost or uncertain in the darkness, and always be there with them when they look up. That’s my way of living.”

“When the boat had gone a few oar-strokes away from land they were still standing on the beach, gazing after the boy whom an unknown woman had left naked in their arms. They were holding hands, and other people gave way before them, and I could see no one except them. Or were they perhaps so extraordinary that other people melted away and vanished into thin air around them?When I had clambered up with my bag onto the deck of the mail-boat North Star, I saw them walking back together on their way home: on the way to our turnstile-gate; home to Brekkukot, our house which was to be razed to the ground tomorrow. They were walking hand in hand, like children.”