I don't know what happens to our consciousness when we're unwound," says Connor. "I don't even know when that consciousness starts. But I do know this." He pauses to make sure all of them are listening. "We have a right to our lives!" The kids go wild. "We have a right to choose what happens to our bodies!" The cheers reach fever pitch. "We deserve a world where both those things are possible— and it's our job to help make that world.

The sad truth about humanity...is that people believe what they're told. Maybe not the first time, but by the hundredth time, the craziest of ideas just becomes a given.

Their fate rested entirely on me. I could save them by telling the truth. I could destroy them by lying. No one should have that much power.

If you have to ask then you don't deserve an answer.

Unwinds didn't go out with a bang-they didn't even go out with a whimper. they went out with the silence of a candle flame pinched between two fingers.

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

The living do not see eternity, just as they don't see Everlost, but they sense both in ways that they don't even know. They don't feel the Everlost barrier set across the Mississippi River, and yet no one had ever dared to draw city boundaries that straddle both sides of its waters. The living do not see Afterlights, and yet everyone has had times when they've felt a presence near them - sometimes comforting, sometimes not - but always strong enough to make one turn around and look over one's shoulder.