“It only takes a few politicians to stoke division, or a few demagogues encouraging hatred to set your kind upon one another. And then before you know it, you have a whole nation biting on its own tail, going round and round until there is nothing left but the snapping of teeth.”

“You think you are some fine predator? A swamp panther or coywolv?” He pretended to inspect her. “Where are your teeth and claws, girl?” He bared his teeth. “Where is your bite?”

“You can’t know its mind, and you can’t control it. This creature is nothing but war incarnate. If you traffic with it, you bring war into your house, and violence down upon yourself.”

“Killing isn't free. It takes something out of you every time you do it. You get their life; they get a piece of your soul. It's always a trade.”

“We are nature. Our every tinkering is nature, our every biological striving. We are what we are, and the world is ours. We are its gods. Your only difficulty is your unwillingness to unleash your potential fully upon it.”

“No one else could see all the bodies she’d left behind, but they were there, looking at her. Or maybe that was just her, looking at herself, and not liking what she saw. Knowing she could never escape her own judging gaze.”

“The problem with surviving was that you ended up with the ghosts of everyone you’d ever left behind riding on your shoulders.”