“Their throat muscles shifted sharply when they spoke, as if separately manufacturing each word.”

“Is. English. Not. Your. Native. Language?" Grim spoke each word separately, and strung each syllable out.Nick hated it when he did that."Oh, how silly of me," Grim continued. "I forgot Stupid is your native tongue.”

“He looked back at her, and when she saw the look on his face, she saw his eyes at Renwick’s, when he had watched the Portal that separated him from his home shatter into a thousand irretrievable pieces. He held her gaze for a split second, then looked away from her, the muscles in his throat working. ”

“They spoke to me of people, and of humanity.But I've never seen people, or humanity.I've seen various people, astonishingly dissimilar,Each separated from the next by an unpeopled space.”

“His mouth would have given despair to even the drollest of fools; it was a mouth made for frowns and scowls and sharply worded commands, all thin pale lips and clenched muscles, a mouth that had forgotten how to smile and had never known how to laugh”

“He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars.”