“So much of my life had been under tight control. So much of Quinn's life had been wild insanity. What we needed now was both: a directed burst of controlled insanity.”

“To be completely helpless in the face of life―powerless to do a single thing―that's what I'd always feared more than anything. It was like I'd been keeping all the edges of my life neat and clean, pretending the neatness was all that mattered, pretending life could somehow be controlled.”

“Who says I'm insane?""Oh you're sane alright. You're so sane, you scare me.You're so sane, it's insane.”

“Then, in spite of everything, he began to smile. So much of his existence in Everlost had been full of despair. Despair, and a fear of losing what he had. But Allie was not lost, she was just there across the river, waiting for him to find her. Nick was not lost either--not entirely.It was then that Mikey McGill realized something. It must have been his sister who first called this place Everlost, because by naming it so, it stripped away all hope except for a faith in her, and the "safety" she could provide. Well, Mary was wrong on all counts, because nothing in Everlost was lost forever, if one had the courage to search for it.Mikey held tightly on to this shining truth as he and the golem sunk into the earth. Then with all the force of his heart, his mind, and his soul, Mikey McGill began to dig.”

“How much do you know about the Heartland War?' Connor shrugs. 'It was the last chapter in our history textbook, but we had state testing, so we never got to it.”

“I hadn't lived a real life―I'd had just a model of a life. Everything I did, everything I thought, was suspended safely by strings, too high up for anyone to damage. Zero contact, zero risk. Now those strings had been cut and I was going to die, never having had a chance to live without them.”

“Maybe that had been his plan all along, or maybe not. But one thing's for certain- now that I had said it, it was his plan.”