So, whenever I'm writing, I'm writing in the presence of all the other books I've read and I think we all are.

And I grew up on a steady diet of science fiction, especially apocalyptic and postapocalyptic fiction.

It was what you did, Wolgast understood; you started to tell a story about who you were, and soon enough the lies were all you had and you became that person.

Don't we all deserve forgiveness? I hope we do; I believe we do. Forgiveness says as much about the character of the person bestowing it as the person receiving it. Learning to forgive may be the most difficult of human acts,and the closest thing to divinity, whatever you decide that is.

It's different being afraid when there's the hope it will amount to something.

On a fading summer evening, late in the last hours of his old life, Peter Jaxon-son of Demetrius and Prudence Jaxon, First Family; descendent of Terrence Jaxon, signatory of the One Law; great-great-nephew of the one known as Auntie, Last of the First; Peter of Souls, the Man of Days and the One Who Stood-took his position on the catwalk above Main Gate, waiting to kill his brother.

As long as we remember a person, they're not really gone. Their thoughts, their feelings, their memories, they become a part of us.