What happened to you?" she asked. "I got hit in the side." "With what?" "A knife.

End of the day, the quick and the dead are the same. Everyone's just looking for home.

From out of nowhere, Phury felt an overwhelming tide of guilt, like someone had popped the lid off all his deepest concerns and his fears for the future of the race. He had to respond to it, couldn't bear the pressure. Riding the wave, he found himself saying in a rush, "We live and die for our kind. The species is our first and only concern. We fight every night and count the jars of thelessers we kill. Stealth is the way we protect the civilians. The less they know about us, the safer they are. That is why we disappeared.

It was a universal truth among males that anytime you saw a guy get it in the nuts, you experienced a shot of phantom pain in your own croquet set.

With his fantastic mane of multicoloured hair, Phury should have been in Hollywood's league with the ladies, but he'd stuck with his vow of celibacy. There was room for one and only one love in his life, and it had been slowly killing him for years.

May I take your vein for a moment? I find myself... curiously depleted" Okay, right. Talk about your Johnny-on-the-spots: He locked them in and all but tore off his arm and threw it at her.

Time to the face the music.