“I'm thinking maybe letting the latches burn is the right idea. Let everything burn until there's nothing left but ashes and cool rain.”

“He's a feral child. No mother, no father, no one to care for him or raise him or teach him how to be human. So he's existed much like an animal, without language. He thinks in images, not word.""How strange," Lanaya, sounding amazed.Ryter shakes his head sadly. "Not strange, I'm afaraid. His condition is all too common in the latches. And becoming more common every day.”

“I never had a brain until Freak came along and let me borrow his for awhile, and that's the truth, the whole truth. The unvanquished truth, is how Freak would say it, and for a long time it was him who did the talking.”

“I know who the real hero is, and it isn't me or brave Lanaya. It's an old man with a white beard and a walking stick and a heart so big it won't let him stop thinking he can change the world by writing down things in a book no one will ever read.”

“Pain is just a state of mind. You can think your way out of everything, even pain.”

“Shut up!" I say, holding my hands to my ears. "Shut up!"But the stupid gummy won't shut up; he's trying to tell me something important even though I'm covering my ears and I don't want to hear it and I don't want to think about who I am or what's wrong with me or why I'm out here at the edge of the Urb, at the edge of the known world, listening to some old mope who's so crazy, he think about the future when everyone knows that the future doesn't exist.”

“Will it hurt?" I ask. "Getting your parts replaced?"Freak doesn't answer for a while and then he says in his stern, smart voice, "Sure it will hurt. But so what? Pain is just a state of mind. You can think your way out of anything, even pain."I'm pretty worried about the whole deal, and I go, "But why do you want to be the first? Can't someone else be first? Isn't it dangerous?"Life is dangerous," Freak says.”