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

I was asking if unwinding kills you, or if it leaves you alive somehow. C'mon—it's not like we haven't thought about it." (...) What do you think, Connor?" asks Hayden. "What hap­pens to your soul when you get unwound?" Who says I even got one?" For the sake of argument, let's say you do." Who says I want an argument?

You can't change laws without first changing human nature.

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.

Tranq'd by your own gun,"Lev says."How pathetic.

Statistically speaking, there's a better chance that some part of me will go on to greatness somewhere in the world. I'd rather be partly great than entirely useless.

History is written by the victors--and when there is no victors, it all winds up in the corporate shredders.