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

Apparently textbooks were an endangered species here in Bixby, Oklahoma.

And over all those sleepy weeks, the dream always ended the same way, with the dragon coming for the princess saying the same words every time.... "Face it, Tally-wa, you're Special.

I make it a policy never to appear surprised" - Dr Barlow

The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit. Of course, Tally thought, you’d have to feed your cat only salmon-flavored cat food for a while, to get the pinks right.

you're infamous, Tally. Everyone's terrified of you. The new system may have made the other cities nervous, but they seem to think my little gang of psychotic sixteen-year-olds is worse" - Cable to Tally

"Clear-cutting" was the word for what the Rusties had done to the old forests: felling every tree, killing every living thing, turning entire countries into grazing land. Whole rain forests had been consumed, reduced from millions of interlocking species to a bunch of cows eating grass, a vast web of life traded for cheap hamburgers. "Look, we're not clear-cutting. All we're doing is pulling out the garbage that the Rusties left behind,” David said. "It just takes a little surgery to do it."