“Better the devil you know. I wonder why the only choice is twixt two devils, tho.”

“Noise ain't Truth, Noise is what men want to be true, and there's a difference twixt those two things so big that it could ruddy well kill you if you don't watch out.”

“War is like a monster," he says, almost to himself. "War is the devil. It starts and it consumes and it grows and grows and grows." He's looking at me now. "And otherwise normal men become monsters, too.”

“I can read it.I can read her.Cuz she’s thinking about how her own parents also came here with hope like my ma. She’s wondering if the hope at the end of our hope is just as false as the one that was at the end of my ma’s. And she;s taking the words of my ma and putting them into the mouths of her own ma and pa and hearing them say that they love her and they miss her and they wish her the world. And she’s taking the song of my pa and she’s weaving it into everything else till it becomes a sad thing all her own.And it hurts her, but it’s an okay hurt, but it hurts still, but it’s good, but it hurts.She hurts.I know all this.I know it’s true.Cuz I can read her.I can read her Noise even tho she ain’t got none.I know who she is.I know Viola Eade.”

“The only crime, the only crime is to take a life. There is nothing else.''And that's why you don't fight,'I say.She turns to me sharply. 'To preserve life is to fight everything that man stands for.”

“I don’t know what’s ahead,” I say. “I don’t know nothing about nothing but whatever it is, it’s gotta be better than what’s behind. It’s gotta be.”

“I have two maxims that I believe, dear girl. One, if you can control yourself, you can control others. Two, if you can control information, you can control others.”