“Words don't hurt you." Which is one of the hugest criminal lies perpetrated by adults against children in this world. Because words hurt more than any physical pain.”

“Lethargy. It's a word I know, because it's in one of my father's favorite expressions. Lethargy breeds lethargy. It means the more you lie around doing nothing, the more you want to lie around doing nothing. Your limbs and your mind feel so heavy that it becomes a major effort just to lift your arm to channel surf.”

“Don't you recognize me, Mary? It's your good friend Allie the Outcast - although it looks like you're the one who's the out-cast now." Then Allie realized something with far too much glee. "Now that you're here - alive and all - there's something I've wanted to do for a very long time."Then Allie reached back, curled her fleshie's right hand into a fist, and swung it toward Mary with all her might.This was one strong fleshie!The punch connected with Mary's eye so hard, that Mary's entire body spun around, and she collapsed into a leopard chair. Allie's knuckles hurt, but it was a good kind of pain."My eye!" wailed Mary. "Oh! My eye.”

“Do you know that if you take the books in an average school library and stretched out all those words into a single line, the line would go all the way around the world? Actually, I made that up, but doesn't it sound like it should be true?”

“You're going to pee in someone's suitcase?""Do you have any other ideas?"And suddenly Miracolina begins to snicker, then giggle, then giggle, then cackle uncontrollably. "He's going to pee in someone's suitcase!""Quiet! Do you want people on the bus to hear you?"But Miracolina is beyond help. She's entered into a fullfledged laughter fit-the kind that leaves your stomach hurting. "They're gonna open their suitcase," she blurts between bursts of glee, "And their clothes’ll be full of pee!”

“So," says Lev, as casually as he can, "you wanna dance?" "Do you believe in the end of the world?" she responds. Lev shrugs. "I don't know. Why?" "Because the day after that is when I'll dance with you.”

“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.”