I am afraid of her, afraid of what she says-and thrilled by it too, because it means I don't have to accept that I am smaller than I once believed.

I didn't know that idiocy caused people to just start spontaneously bleeding from the nose.

I have never had parents who set good examples, parents whose expectations were worth living up to, but she did. I can see them within her, the courage and the beauty they pressed into her like a handprint.

I can’t answer either question. But the look she gives me reminds me of the look in the attack dog’s eyes in the aptitude test – a vicious, predatory stare. She wants to rip me to pieces. I can’t lie down in submission now. I have become an attack dog too.

You're too important to just... die.

I'm a fairly religious person, so I believe in some things that sound a little crazy I'm sure, depending on where you're standing. I believe in leaving room for things that you can't explain in the universe, and you don't have to be religious to leave room for those things.

If you actually succeed in creating a utopia, you've created a world without conflict, in which everything is perfect. And if there's no conflict, there are no stories worth telling - or reading!