who once had dreams of saving the world, now laughs at anyone who tries.

I think she's brave. I think that nobody has ever believed what she could be capable of. All her life, nobody was listening.

No matter how lonely it makes me, and no matter how wide and horrific the loneliness, at least I remember who I am.

It's the silence I imagine in the rest of the world, the silence of an endless ocean and uninhabitable island, a silence that can be seen from space.

I can almost see what Gabriel meant when he asked, 'What has the free world got that you can’t get here?' Almost. Freedom, Gabriel. That’s what you can’t get here.

Ah, love. That’s what the world has lost. There’s no more love, only the illusion of it.

Suddenly the clouds seem high above us. They’re moving over us in an arch, circling the planet. They have seen abysmal oceans and charred, scorched islands. They have seen how we destroyed the world. If I could see everything, as the clouds do, would I swirl around this remaining continent, still so full of color and life and seasons, wanting to protect it? Or would I just laugh at the futility of it all, and meander onward, down the earth’s sloping atmosphere?