Once you told yourself a story enough times, it was so easy to keep on believing it.

The lie took form as she spoke, pulling on as many strands of truth as it could reach.

When the term "machine gun" enters common parlance, the word "machine" becomes much more sinister.

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.

Surely no one would ever use such a weapon against a city." "There are no limits in war," Volger said, still staring out the window.

A rat called Possible New Strain was sitting under a spaghetti strainer held down with a pile of journalism textbooks, saying rude things in rat-speak.

Making ourselves feel ugly is not fun." "We are ugly.