“The last few weeks, it was as if someone had taken his life to pieces and let him see the way it worked.”

“He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him see the works.”

“He tried to tell me week after week to accept things as they were and move on with my life. But if there was one man who had put his life on hold to wait for something or someone, it was him.”

“That if he were killed in the next few weeks, it would assuredly be near her. At her feet, in her bed. Inside of her.Unfortunately, that last thought just made him think that if he had to choose his final moments, beinginside Charlotte would really be the way to go.”

“In one horrible moment the last piece of the prophecy became clear.So bid him take care, bid him look where he leaps,As life may be death and death life again reaps.He had to leap, and by his death, the others would live. That was it. That was what Sandwich had been trying to say all along, and by now he believed in Sandwich.He put on a final burst of speed, just like the coach taught him in track. He gave everything he had. In the last few steps before the canyon he felt a sharp pain in the back of his leg, and then the ground gave way under his feet.Gregor the Overlander leaped.”

“Carrying that lumber the forty meters from the forest had left his knuckles blistered, his underarms sopping, but now a few hours of flames had lifted what had taken him months to design, weeks to carry, days to build, all but the nails and rivets, all but the hinges and bolts, all into the sky.”