“Life made you get your hands dirty; life was vengeful if you tried an easy route.”

“You will do great and terrible things, Bethany Rudan. Just make sure you know the difference before you choose to act. And look to the boy, the tracker. He anchors you.”

“Time … I will never run out of it.”

“Maybe learning how to be out in the big world isn't the epic journey everyone thinks it is. Maybe that's actually the easy part. The hard part is what's right in front of you. The hard part is learning how to hold the title to your very existence, to own not only property, but also your life.”

“Nothing prepared me for the loss of my mother. Even knowing that she would die did not prepare me. A mother, after all, is your entry into the world. She is the shell in which you divide and become a life. Waking up in a world without her is like waking up in a world without sky: unimaginable.”

“What had happened still seemed implausible. A person was present your entire life, and then one day she disappeared and never came back. It resisted belief.”

“It wasn't the "I love you" she heard that made her let him go. It was the "Come with me" that she didn't.”