“They'll be fine," Wickersham said. "Practice makes perfect."I had to ask. "You practice running away?""We knew we'd make enemies. Other organizations have fire drills; we have oh-shit-someone-found-our-ass drills.”

“You and David could both be right. Maybe human beings are programmed … to help one another, even to fall in love. But just because it's human nature doesn't make it bad, Tally. Besides, we had a whole city of pretties to choose from, and we chose each other."-Zane”

“That letter was your whole future, you daft prince.""It was my past. I lost that the night my parents died. But I found you, Deryn. Maybe I wasn't meant to end the war, but I was meant to find you. I know that. You've saved me from having any reason to keep going.""We save each other. That's how it works.”

“Making ourselves feel ugly is not fun." "We are ugly.”

“Good books make you ask questions. Bad readers want everything answered.”

“Maybe they didn't want you to realize that every civilization has its weakness. There's always one thing we depend on. And if someone takes it away all that's left is some story in a history class.”

“Tally-When you looked around at everyone else how come you didn’t notice they were brain damaged?Az - We didn’t have much to compare our fellow citizens with. Only a few colleagues who seemed different from most people, more engaged, but that was hardly a surprise.History would indicate that the majority of people have always been sheep. Before the operation there were wars and mass hatred and clear cutting. Whatever these lesions make us, it isn’t a far cry from how humanity was in the rusty era. These days we’re just a bit easier to manage.”