People love to hear the brag of the local boy, because they want him to be great, but the foreigner must deny that he has any outstanding virtue - this is what will endear him to the locals.

It's the teachers, they're the enemy. They get us to fight each other, to hate each other.

But if you caught my informant,' said Achilles, 'why in the world would Chamrajnagar—or Graff, if it was him—launch the shuttle anyway? Was catching me doing something naughty so important they’d risk a shuttle and it’s crew just to catch me? I find that quite… flattering. Sort of like winning the Nobel Prize for scariest villain.

Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.

As he thought of it, though, he could not imagine what “just living” might actually be. He had never done it in his life. But he wanted to do it anyway.

Remember, the enemy's gate is down.

When you have a good romance, find ways to make their lives miserable and hellish...Do you think 'Titanic' would have been so popular if they had both lived? Not a prayer.