“Apparently textbooks were an endangered species here in Bixby, Oklahoma. ”

“A rat called Possible New Strain was sitting under a spaghetti strainer held down with a pile of journalism textbooks, saying rude things in rat-speak.”

“That's how things were out here in the wild, she was learning. Dangerous or beautiful. Or both.”

“There was a species of middle pretty who smiled at everything: happy smile, disappointed smile, you're-in-trouble smile.”

“She couldn't disappoint the whole village. There were no wallscreens here, no newsfeeds or satellites bands, and touring soccer teams were no doubt few and far between. (...), that made stories a valuable commodity, and it probably wasn't very often that a stranger dropped in from the sky.”

“And here's what I realized: You Sly Girls don't cry when you watch the big-face parties on the feeds, just because you weren't invited. You don't stay friends with people you hate, just to bump your face rank. And even though nobody knows what you're doing out here, you don't feel invisible at all. Do you?No one answered, but they were listening.Fame is radically stupid, that's all. So I want to try something else.”

“And here in America rival newspapermen attack each other on sight?”