Sometimes Thomas Mackee will stick an earphone into my ear and ask me to listen to a song. When I get over the revulsion of putting something in my ear that's been in his, I sit back and let the music take over, and for a half hour there's something comforting about someone's heart beating at the same rhythm as mine.

I still wake with your name on my lips every morning.

When I grow, I'm going to be my mother.

No, no, no, no,no,' he gasped. 'You can't bring up your mum and dad while your hand is down there, Finke

It's funny how you can forget everything except people loving you. Maybe that's why humans find it so hard getting over love affairs. It's not the pain they're getting over, it's the love.

You list the dead. You tell the stories of the past. You write about the catastrophes and the massacres. What about the living, Finnikin? Who honors them?

You can't go around feeling too much.