“I knew that there had been times in the past-terrible times-when people had destroyed others in haste,in fear, and had brought about their own destruction”

“Our people made that choice, the choice to go to Sameness. Before my time, before the previous time, back and back and back. We relinquished color when we relinquished sunshine and did away with difference. We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.”

“For the first time, he heard something that he knew to be music. He heard people singing. Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps, it was only an echo.”

“What if others-adults-had, upon becoming Twelves, received in their instructions the same terrifying sentence? What if they had all been instructed: You may lie?”

“There was just a moment when things weren't quite the same, weren't quite as they had always been through the long friendship”

“Behind him,across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps it was only an echo.”

“We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others.”