“In the end, dying isn’t the hard part. Everyone always treats death like it’s such a traumatic ordeal. But death is quiet and unless it happens instantaneously, it comes up to you like an old friend and wraps itself around you and just holds you there. It cradles you as you let your fear envelope you and burn through you. But you can only struggle against the inevitable for so long, and once you get over the panic and accept what’s happening to you, it’s actually almost kind of pleasant.No…death isn’t hard.Living, however…now that’s the real ass-kicker.”

“That's when I saw you, really saw you for the first time. I didn't intend to look at you, it just happened. It was like those pictures, you know, those optical illusions. You can gaze at them forever and see only one thing. Then when you relax your eyes for just a moment, another picture magically appears. The funny thing with that kind of visual trick it that it's really hard to go back to seeing the original picture once you've seen the new one.”

“If I reach behind my hair, just at the nape of my neck, I can feel it; the slight bump of the tiny electronic device that the men who invaded New Haven surgically implanted in me. Other chips were placed in the rest of the children stolen from the facility. As far as I can tell, they’re a means of keeping tabs on us…and for most they’re meant to neutralize the gifts we were born with. What they meant to do and what they actually did, however, were far removed from each other.”

“She jammed both hands to her hips, grinding her boots to the linoleum. “You are so rigid, it’s infuriating!” Noah’s ear-to-ear smile froze the breath right to her lungs. “I know, but you’re really cute when you’re irritated, and it’s kind of worth pissing you off.” Violet nearly lost her death grip on the peas. “You think I’m cute?”

“Yes, it’s funny isn’t it. You try to do what’s best for the people you love, and you just end up in trouble for your efforts.”

“The moment had drawn us together like magnets, planetary masses caught in the same gravitational field. I could feel the pulse of his warm breath against my cheeks, caressing my cold lips.I should have pulled away.I had every intention of pulling away.I wasn’t pulling away.”

“Why do boys kiss girls? Because they like them. Do girls kiss boys because they like them too? …Usually…”