“I'm not entirely sure who you are. I mean, you're not really a kid anymore and you're not an adult. ... So, you're going through all these changes, and I don't know who you'll be at the end of it.”

“Benny took a steadying breath and let it out slowly."Nix, I do understand what you're going through. I'm going through it too.""It's not the same thing," she said very quietly. An elk poked its head out from behind some sagebrush, studied them for a moment, then bent to eat berries from another bush."Then why won't you tell me what it is?"She glared at him. "Honestly, Benny, sometimes I think you don't even know who I am."With that she turned and stalked away, her spine as stiff as a board. Benny stood openmouthed until she was almost back to the tree where Chong sat with Eve."What the hell was that all about?" he asked the elk.The elk, being and elk, said nothing.”

“...but it was death that changed. People are still people. Some good, some bad. Death changed, and we don't know what death really means anymore. Maybe that was the point. Maybe this is an object lesson about the arrogance of our assumptions. Hard to say. But the world? She didn't change. She healed. We stopped hurting her and she began to heal. You can see it all around. The whole world is a forest now. The air is fresher. More trees, more oxygen.”

“Chong said, 'Do yourself a favor, Morg. Next time you're staring at a girl's boobs, look up. You'll be shocked to learn it, but there's going to be a face up there. Nose, mouth, eyes. And behind the eyes is an actual person.”

“His specialty was interrogation. Imagine it, gentlemen. Being strapped to a table so that you are entirely at the mercy of a monster such as this. A person who delights in your pain. A person to whom your screams are more delicious than a lover's whisper. A creature who knows how to keep you alive while he skillfully and meticulously deconstructs those things that define you as human?”

“I did not and do not want my life tied up in cloak-and-dagger bullshit, dead guys, or pissing contests with either the testosterone crowd in there or some prissy-assed Earl Grey-drinking, scone-munching major who isn't even my freaking boss. I don't know you and I don't give a rat's ass if you trust me.”

“Often it was the most unlikely people who found within themselves a spark of something greater. It was probably always there, but most people are never tested, and they go through their whole lives without ever knowing that when things are at their worst, they are at their best.”