So much of my life had been under tight control. So much of Quinn's life had been wild insanity. What we needed now was both: a directed burst of controlled insanity.

Love, Allie concluded, wasn't blind, it simply saw alternate dimensions.

Leadership is about keeping toilets flushing," the Admiral once said. "Unless you're on the battlefront. Then it's about staying alive. Neither are pleasant.

Hope can be bruised and battered. It can be forced underground and even rendered unconscious, but hope cannot be killed.

Lik the tree falling in the forest," says Ira. "Huh?" "You know, the old question - if a tree falls in a forest and no one's there to hear it, does it really make a sound?" Howie considers this. "Is it a pine forest, or oak?" "What's the difference?" "Oak is a much denser wood; it's more likely to be heard by someone on the freeway next to the forest where no one is.

When you truly start to care about someone you become vulnerable to all sorts of things.

A family is a collection of strangers trapped in a web of DNA and forced to cope.