“One of Sir Topher's rules was to never indulge in sentimentality, never return for what was left behind.”

“He knows no other way but ugliness,” Sir Topher said quietly. “He was taught no other lessons but those of force. His teachers have been scum who live by their own rules. No one has ever taught him otherwise.”“Am I to forgive?” she said, her voice shaking with anger.“No,” he said sadly. “Pity him. Or give him new rules. Or put him down like a wild animal before he becomes a monster who destroys everything he encounters.”

“Sir Topher finally looked up. “Because any hope beyond that, my boy, would be too much. I feared we would drown in it.”"Then I choose to drown,” Finnikin said. “In hope. Rather than float into nothing.”

“Never,' he tells me in a tone full of ice, 'underestimate who or what I care for.”

“His voice is deep and gravelly. I once heard one of the girls say that he had the voice of a sex god, but because I've never really heard what a sex god sounds like, I can't verify that.”

“Two best friends traveled from the Burdekin in North Queensland sometime in the 1960s and walked into the Union and fell in love with Grace. Tom finch was the smarter talker of the two and won first round, marrying her before his name came up in the lottery sending him to Vietnam on a tour of duty. He never returned. The heartbroken, patient one, Bill Mackee, grieved a best friend and married the love of his life, adopting the twins when they were four years old.”

“Left alone with the dial tone...excuse me, operator, why is no one listening?”