Without a filter, a man is just chaos walking.

Belief is half of all healing. Belief in the cure, belief in the future that awaits.

Being a leader is making the people you love hate you a little more each day.

I take my rucksack and go out the opening where the front door used to be. Manchee gets up from where he's curled and follows me. When I sit down, he recurls by my legs and fall asleep, farting happily and giving a doggy sigh. Simple to be a dog.

Sometimes people need to lie to themselves most of all.

I was just trying to stay alive, looking for ways to find you, hoping you hadn't left me behind." "Never," I say. "Not never." He looks back up at me. "I'd never leave you neither." "You promise?" "Cross my heart, hope to die," he says, grinning shyly. "I promise, too," I say and I smile at him. "I ain't never leaving you, Todd Hewitt, not never again.

Her accent's funny, different from mine, different from anyone in Prentisstown's. Her lips make different kinds of outlines for the letters, like they're swooping down on them from above, pushing them into shape, telling them what to say. In Prentisstown, everyone talks like they're sneaking up on their words, ready to club them from behind.