“We are respecting our parents' wishes....They didn't want to shelter us from the world's treacheries. They wanted us to survive them.”

“And my parents made me want i am. So what? We get stuff from our parents, but we also get stuff from the world around us. From people around us. And at the end of the day, we're us.”

“Most of our parents wanted the best for us, I knew, but we also wanted the best for them.”

“The people who run the circus kidnapped us from our parents. Since we got here, we have all been working in the circus. We can’t see any of our mummies or kiss them OR cuddle up to them. said Adrian.His tears flowing in his big blue eyes that were the colour of the sky. We didn’t want to listen to our parents when they told us: ‘Never, Ever!” talk to strangers. We all disobeyed and spoke to strangers, and then the strangers stole us away from our parents.”

“We define our identity always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle against, the things our significant others want to see in us. Even after we outgrow some of these others—our parents, for instance—and they disappear from our lives, the conversation with them continues within us as long as we live.”

“Your parents, Oskar and Mina. They are dead and gone now, Yanek, and we would grieve them if we could. But we have only one purpose now: survive. Survive at all costs, Yanek. We cannot let these monsters tear us from the pages of the world.”