“Near his foot was a map of Gettysburg, and he looked down at the ridges and grooves running across the land. It wasn't just the nation that the war had divided; it was families as well. Everyone had been fighting for what they thought was right, no matter who was on the opposite side of the line, whether it was your father or your brother or your son. It was about issues and causes and ideas, and what more could you ask of a person, Peter thought, than to risk all that they were for all they believed they could be?”

“He had been taught that language was essentially inadequate, that it could never speak what was there, that it only spoke itself.He thought about the death mask. He could and could not say that the mask and the man were dead. What had happened to him was that the ways in which it could be said had become more interesting than the idea that it could not.”

“Fucker, I though to myself. So irritated by a stare!I wonder what your reaction would have been if you had lived under occupation for as many years as I had, or if your shopping rights, like all of your other rights, were violated day and night, or if the olive trees in your grandfather's orchards had been uprooted, or if your village had been bulldozed, or if your house had been demolished, or if your sister could not reach her school, or if your brother had been given three life sentences, or if your mother had given birth at a checkpoint, or if you had stood in a line for days in the hot August summers waiting for your work permit, or if you could not reach your beloved ones in Arab East Jerusalem....A stare, and you lose your mind!”

“There was a wall. It did not look important. It was built of uncut rocks roughly mortared. An adult could look right over it, and even a child could climb it. Where it crossed the roadway, instead of having a gate it degenerated into mere geometry, a line, an idea of boundary. But the idea was real. It was important. For seven generations there had been nothing in the world more important than that wall.Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on.”

“WHETHER IT'S A CHILD'S TOY OR A NATION'S OIL, IT'S ALL THE SAME, the Red Rider said. YOU FIGHT FOR WHAT YOU WANT. AGGRESSION. IT'S THE SPICE OF LIFE. War was right: people had to fight for what they wanted. Or maybe balance, as Famine has said -- strength matched with temperance. No, she thought. Not balance, Control. IT'S ALWAYS ABOUT CONTROL, War agreed merrily. [as in the meaning of why wars happen]”

“26 Thought-Provoking Questions:1. if you could own any single object that you don't have now, what would it be?2. if you could have one superpower, what would it be?3. if you could meet anyone in history, who would you choose and what would you ask them?4. if you could add one person to your family, who would it be?5. if you could be best friends with anyone in the world, who would you pick?6. if you could change anything about your face, what would it be7. if you could change anything about your parents, what would it be?8. if you could fast-forward your life, how old would you want to be and why?9. what is the one object you own that matters more to you than anything else?10. what is the one thing in the world that you are most afraid of?11. if you could go to school in a foreign country, which one would you pick?12. if you had the power to drop any course from your curriculum, what would it be?13. if you caught your best friend stealing from you, what would you do?14. if you had a chance to spend a million dollars on anything but yourself, how would you spend it?15. if you could look like anyone you wanted, who would that be?16. if you were a member of the opposite sex, who would you want to look like?17. if you could change your first name, what name would you chose?18. what's the best thing about being a teen?19. what's the worst?20. if someone you like asked you out on a date, but your best friend had a crush on this person, what would you do?21. what is the worst day of the week?22. if you had to change places with one of your friends, who would you chose?23. if you could be any sports hero, who would you like to be?24. what's the one thing you've done in your life that you wish you could do over differently?25. what would you do if you found a dollar in the street? what if you found $100? $10,000?26. if you had a chance to star in any movie, who would you want as a costar?”