“He wanted to go running home to Mommy, what can I say? Of course, it's hard for me to believe that anyone would choose to step out of the FAYZ. I mean, where else do you get to eat rats, use your backyard for a toilet, and live in fear for nineteen different kinds of scary?" -Howard”

“I came up with myself. FAYZ. Spelled F-A-Y-Z. It stands for Fallout Alley Youth Zone. Fallout Alley, and nothing but kids." Howard laughed his mean laugh. "Don't worry, Astrid, it's just a FAYZ. Get it? Just a FAYZ.”

“If you do bad stuff and don't repent, you go to hell," Orc said, like he was begging for a refutation."Yeah, well, you know what? If Howard's in hell, I guess we can all have a big get-together soon enough. a”

“Why are we doing this?" Caine asked him. "You know damned well why we're doing this. Because it's a fight. It may be THE fight. I may be the final fight. And what else are we good at, you and me? What are we going to do if we ever get out there anyway?”

“He's one kind of person, you're another. When life is going along normally, you're sort of the same. But when life turns strange and scary, when there's a crisis, suddenly you're completely different people.”

“The gaiaphage. That's the other word they use. 'Gaia,' as in world. 'Phage,' as in a worm or something that eats something up. I'm going to go way out on a limb here and say I don't think something that calls itself a 'world eater' is a good thing.”

“What do you think that fish is?' Sam asked Astrid.She peered closely at the alleged fish. 'I think that's an example of Pesce inedibilis,' she said.'Yeah?' Sam made a face. 'Do you think it's okay to eat?'Astrid sighed theatrically. 'Pesce inedibilis? Inedible? Joke, duh. Try to keep up, Sam, I made that really easy for you.'Sam smiled. 'You know, a real genius would have known I wouldn't get it. Ergo, you are not a real genius. Hah. That's right. I threw down an 'ergo.''She gave him a pitying look. 'That's very impressive, Sam. Especially from a boy who has twenty-two different uses for the word 'dude.”