But they're already singing our praises!" "They are Americans. They toot their horns for anything.

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

Maybe this was how you stayed sane in wartime: a handful of noble deeds amid the chaos.

High school wasn't a trial by fire or some ordeal that had to be survived. It was all a big joke. You just had to provide the laugh track.

That was one problem with dramatic exits: Sometimes they wound up making you look like a bubblehead.

Nature was tough, it could be dangerous, but unlike Dr. Cable or shay, or peris-unlike people in general-it made sense. The problems it threw at you could be solved rationally.

Oh, this beast? It's...perspicacious loris. 'Perspicacious' meaning 'wise or canny'." "Get stuffed," Bovril said, then giggled. "And it insults people," Telsa said. "How peculiar.