Sam’s probably out there somewhere being his usual heroic self,” Caine said. “I can’t let that boy save the world all alone. I’d never live it down.

He found a set of encyclopedias—like Wikipedia, but paper and very bulky.

Why are we doing this?" Caine asked him. "You know damned well why we're doing this. Because it's a fight. It may be THE fight. I may be the final fight. And what else are we good at, you and me? What are we going to do if we ever get out there anyway?

One minute the teacher was talking about the Civil War. And the next minute he was gone. There. Gone. No 'poof.' No flash of light. No explosion.

He's one kind of person, you're another. When life is going along normally, you're sort of the same. But when life turns strange and scary, when there's a crisis, suddenly you're completely different people.

Numbers still gave Astrid pleasure. That was the great thing about numbers: it required no faith to believe that two plus two equaled four. And math never, ever condemned you for your thoughts and desires.

It's vital to keep a sense of humour when the world seems to have suddenly become a very strange place.