“I tell you, little man, life's fall guys, beaten, fleeced to the bone, sweated from time immemorial, I warn you, that when the princes of this world start loving you, it means they're going to grind you up into battle sausage...”

“I warn you that when the princes of this world start loving you it means they are going to grind you up into battle sausage.”

“You can tell a lot from a person's nails. When a life starts to unravel, they're among the first to go.”

“She thought of something her mother had told her when she'd finally broken up with one of her most dysfunctional boyfriends. When a man tells you he's going to hurt you, believe it. They always warn you and they're always right.”

“When I asked him the meaning of life, Dr. Webb got very quiet and then told me life has no one meaning, it only has whatever meaning each of us puts on our own life. I'll tell you now that I still don't know the meaning of mine. And Lucas Cader, with all his brains and talent, doesn't know the meaning of his, either. But I'll tell you the meaning of all this. The meaning of some bird showing up and some boy disappearing and you knowing all about it. The meaning of this was not to save you, but to warn you instead. To warn you of confusion and delusion and assumption. To warn you of psychics and zombies and ghosts of your lost brother. To warn you of Ada Taylor and her sympathy and mothers who wake you up with vacuums. To warn you of two-foot-tall birds that say they can help, but never do.”

“I thought you were going to be a grey little man like most of us but you outshone us all. When your times comes, Guntram, you could look Death in the face and tell her, 'I go now but how I lived my life!”