“We waste all our money throwing dice, trying to get close to Luck, trying to get the big win... To help us find something we can keep for ourselves.”

“Mahlia just waited. She was good at that. When you were a castoff, it didn’t do any good trying to talk to people, but sometimes, if you just kind of waited them out, people would get uncomfortable and feel like they had to do something.”

“We rest in the hands of a fickle god. He plays on our behalf only for entertainment, and he will close his eyes and sleep if we fail to engage his intellect.”

“Death is not defeat, Tool told himself. We all die. Every one of us. Rip and Blade and Fear and all the rest. We all die. So what if you are the last? You were designed to be destroyed.”

“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.”

“You will die.” “I guess. I don’t know.” She shook her head, trying to pick through her feelings. “I used to think I was alive just because I kept getting away. If someone didn’t put a bullet in my head, I was winning. I was still breathing, right?” She looked at the blackened land around her, feeling tired and sad and alone. “But now I’m thinking it ain’t like that. Now I’m thinking that once you got enough dead looking over your shoulder, you’re dead anyway. Don’t matter if you’re still walking and talking, they weigh you down.”