But you weren't born expecting that kind of beauty in everyone, all the time. You just got programmed into thinking anything else is ugly.

Alek said, "Do you think I'm being a fool?" "I think you're trying to do something good. But doing good is rarely easy, and no weapon has ever stopped a war.

She looked at David closely, and the feeling was still there. She could see that his forehead was too high, that a small scar cut a white stroke through his eyebrow. And his smile was pretty crooked, really. But it was as if something had changed inside Tally's head, something that had turned his face pretty to her.

it's not called the Rusty Ruins because some guy called Rusty found them.

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.

Tally-When you looked around at everyone else how come you didn’t notice they were brain damaged? Az - We didn’t have much to compare our fellow citizens with. Only a few colleagues who seemed different from most people, more engaged, but that was hardly a surprise. History would indicate that the majority of people have always been sheep. Before the operation there were wars and mass hatred and clear cutting. Whatever these lesions make us, it isn’t a far cry from how humanity was in the rusty era. These days we’re just a bit easier to manage.

If you see everything through hovercams and feed stories, you wind up blind to what's right in front of you.