“I gotta go to the bathroom," Emby mumbles. "You should have thought of that before you left," says Hayden, putting on his best mother voice. "How many times do we have to tell you? Always use the potty before climbing into a shipping crate.”

“So tell us," says Connor, "in The World According to Hayden, when do we start to live?"A long silence from Hayden, and then he says quietly, uneasily, "I don't know."Emby razzes him. "That's not an answer."But Connor reaches out and grabs Emby's arm, to shut him up- because Emby's wrong. Even though Connor can't see Hayden's face, he can hear the truth of it in his voice. There was no hint of evasion in Hayden's words. This was raw honesty, void of Hayden's usual flip attitude. It was perhaps the first truly honest thing Connor had ever heard him say. "Yes, it is an answer," Connor says. "Maybe it's the best answer of all. If more people could admit they really don't know, maybe there never would have been a Heartland War.”

“No, it's not!" says Emby."Hey—he wanted my opinion, I gave it.""But it's wrong!""You see, Hayden? You see what you started?""Yes!" Hayden says excitedly. "It looks like we're about to have our own little Heartland War. Pity it's too dark for us to watch it.”

“[...] every time he forces himself to think before acting, it's her voice in his head telling him to slow down. He wants to tell her, but she's always so busy in the medical jet—and you don't just go to somebody and say, "I'm a better person because you're in my head.”

“The Admiral's using us," he says to the kids around him. "Don't you see that?"Most of the kids just shrug, but Hayden's there, and he never misses an opportunity to add his peculiar wisdom to a situation. "I'd rather be used whole than in pieces," Hayden says.”

“How can you pass laws about things that nobody knows?""They do it all the time," says Hayden. "That's what law is: educated guesses at right and wrong.”

“I was asking if unwinding kills you, or if it leaves you alive somehow. C'mon—it's not like we haven't thought about it." (...)What do you think, Connor?" asks Hayden. "What hap­pens to your soul when you get unwound?"Who says I even got one?"For the sake of argument, let's say you do."Who says I want an argument?”