does a sick society get so used to its illness that it can't remember being well? what if the memory is too dangerous for the people who like things the way they are?

It's a big question. Where do you begin to change the world?

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.

Part of my job is to help other kids find books, because not everyone has a keenly organized mind. Some kids could wander the library for hours and still have no idea how to find anything. For them, the Dewey Decimal System might as well be advanced calculus.

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.

We move in and out of darkness and light all our lives. Right now I'm pleased to be in the light.

Sharks have a deadly form of claustrophobia. It's not so much fear of enclosed spaces as it is inability to exist in them. No one knows why. Some say it's the metal in aquariums that throws their equilibrium off. But whatever it is, big sharks don't last long in captivity