Maybe that was the price of loving someone: You lost your grasp of where they ended and you began.

I'm not sure what I am anymore... Sometimes I think I'm nothing but what other people have done to me―a big collection of brainwashing, surgeries, and cures... That, and all the mistakes I've made. All the people I've disappointed.

Maybe they didn't want you to realize that every civilization has its weakness. There's always one thing we depend on. And if someone takes it away all that's left is some story in a history class.

Emperors are vain and useless things.

What happens when perfection isn't good enough?

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.

One of the most common questions writers are asked is "Where do you get your ideas?" But the sad truth is, we don't know. Ideas can come at any time and from any direction: in the shower, waiting for an elevator, or while bouncing across Wikipedia pages.