“Well, what I don't get is why do we exist? I don't mean how, but why.' I watched the fireflies of his thoughts orbit his head. He said, 'we exist because we exist. . .we could imagine all sorts of universes like this one, but this is the one that happened.”

“A lot of us are working harder than we want, at things we don't like to do. Why? In order to afford the sort of existence we don't care to live.”

“Sam said, "How do any of us know that anything is real?""We don't," Dodge said."Everything I know is a memory," Sam continued. "Every person I ever met, everything I have ever done. It could all be false. Implanted."It was a staggering thought. What if nothing that had gone before had ever really happened? Was the person he remembered as his mother even real? Had Fargas existed only in his mind?"I think you'd know," Vienna said. "I don't know why, but somehow, I think you'd know.”

“We could imagine all sorts of universes unlike this one, but this is the one that happened.”

“Well, that's why smart people get tripped up with worry and fear. Worry...fear...is just a misuse of the creative imagination that has been placed in each of us. Because we are smart and creative, we imagine all the things that could happen, that might happen, that will happen if this or that happens. See what I mean?”

“I need you, the reader, to imagine us, for we don't really exist if you don't.”