“How in hell did those bombers get up there every single second of our lives! Why doesn't someone want to talk about it! We've started and won two atomic wars since 2022! Is it because we're having so much fun at home we've forgotten the world? Is it because we're so rich and the rest of the world's so poor and we just don't care if they are? I've heard rumors; the world is starving, but we're well fed. Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Is that why we're hated so much? I've heard the rumors about hate too, once in a long while, over the years. Do you know why? I don't, that's sure! Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. They just might stop us from making the same damn insane mistakes!”

“Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Is that why we're hated so much?”

“Why doesn't anyone ask me anything about the last two years?" I asked her."The answer is very simple. We're afraid to ask because we're afraid of knowing... Maybe if we don't talk about it, and maybe if we pretend it never happened, it will be forgotten.”

“This is why Caliban was a punishment. I realize it now -- it's a beautiful, perfect world of nothingness. No connection, no longing, no . . . love. A world we're trapped in until we're needed here, a world we're condemned to while everyone we might care about forgets us.”

“So we've pulled the chute, and we're drifting, riding the sky. It's just you and me. You can hear me now that we're falling like this, remember? I tell you that I don't want this to end. I don't want to land and reach the real world, because I like our world up here better.”

“Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. They just might stop us from making the same damm insane mistakes!”