the captain is supposed to go down with the ship" . "unless the first mate knocks him out and throws him in a lifeboat

No," says Ariana. "It was a dream. Reality got in the way, that's all.

Normally Connor would walk away from a conversation like this. His life is about tangibles: things you can see, hear and touch. God, souls, and all that has always been like a secret in a black box he couldn't see into, so it was easier just to leave it alone. Only now, he's inside the black box.

The measure of a man is not how much he suffers in the test, but how he comes out at the end.

I have no idea,' he tells her, and there is such a spark in his eye when he says it, she can tell having no idea is exactly the way he wants it.

In a perfect world everything would be either black or white, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn't a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is.

Your hair looks funny," Lief said, as soon as the Ugloids left. "It stands straight up!" No," said Nick, intensely irritated, "It's hanging straight down." Lief just gave him an upside-down shrug. "Up is down in China and you're part-Chinese.