maybe when you look at your face 50 times its really not that interesting anymore

Everyone in the world was programmed by the place they were born, hemmed in by their beliefs, but you had to at least try to grow your own brain.

The Rusty Ruins were the remains of an old city, a hulking reminder of back when there'd been way too many people, and everyone was incredibly stupid. And ugly.

You're splitting?" "No sh*it, Sherlock.

Why are you still wearing...?" Aya began. "Oh, that's not smart plastic? You're really an ugly?" David rolled his eyes and Shay said quietly, "David's never had any surge at all. But I wouldn't use the word ugly...Tally might eat you.

Maybe she still was a pretty-head, making up irrational stories about the empty forest. The longer she stayed alone out here, the more Tally understood why the Rusties and their predecessors had believed in invisible beings, praying to placate spirits as they trashed the natural world around them.

Your father always suspected that being pretty-minded is simply the natural state for most people. They want to be vapid and lazy and vain—Maddy glanced at Tally—and selfish. It only takes a twist to lock in that part of their personalities. He always thought that some people could think their way out of it.