“The future is like the moon. You never expect to go there, or think about what it might be like.”

“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.”

“That does it. It can't be true love. Mr. Willow has eyes like a sick kitten. You might love a sick kitten but you don't marry it, you keep it as a pet.”

“Books are like truth serum. If you don't read, you can't figure out what's real.”

“Books are like truth serum-- if you don't read, you can't figure out what's real.”

“I think in some way it's like that for all of us, living with the ghosts of things that used to be, or never were. We're all of us haunted by yesterday, and we got no choice but to keep marching into our tomorrows.”

“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.”