“...cities are murky places - hatching grounds for monsters...”

“I just wasn't ready for his stories. They'd breed with the others I'd heard and hatch new monsters, because there was no such thing as separation here, not once you'd started listening. Never listen.”

“One hundred and fifty years ago, the monster began, this country had become a place of industry. Factories grew on the landscape like weeds. Trees fell, fields were up-ended, rivers blackened. The sky choked on smoke and ash, and the people did, too, spending their days coughing and itching, their eyes turned forever toward the ground. Villages grew into town, towns into cities. And people began to live on the earth rather than within it.”

“The underground of the city is like what's underground in people. Beneath the surface, it's boiling with monsters.”

“This inhuman place makes human monsters.”

“Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!”