“Are seeds of hope, yes. Of course."..."The nocturni are the bearers of the hope seeds."..."That's why it's such bad luck to cross them...They carry the seeds Above, and plant them in souls where they're needed.”

“-"your nocturna will never take another human, not for all the length of time in the universe and beyond. Your nocturna is wedded to your soul. Some even say"..."that it is the nocturni who carry souls into the Shadow World when we die, where they will keep watch over them and keep them safe forever. Some say that is nocturni's ultimate purpose.”

“The seeds are tiny, unborn things, and I resent them. They'll be planted and they'll grow into exactly what they're meant to be.”

“The devil stole into the Garden of Eden. He carried with him the disease - amor deliria nervosa - in the form of a seed. It grew and flowered into a magnificent apple tree, which bore apples as bright as blood.-From Genesis: A Complete History of the World and the Known Universe, by Steven Horace, PhD, Harvard University”

“There is a nocturna for every single person in the world! And each night the nocturni sip dreams from the River of Knowledge, and fly out into the world, and deliver them to their humans.”

“But hope got in, no matter how hard and fast I tried to stomp it out. Like these tiny fire ants we used to get in Portland. No matter how fast you liked them, there were always more, a steady stream of them, resistant, ever-multiplying.Maybe, the hope said. Maybe.”

“This is pretty much the answer to every problem you encounter in suburbia: plant a tree, and hope you don't see anyone's privates.”