"You want to know the real reason they never let us touch or talk to each other if they could help it? It made us strong. If you have people who love you, you can fall back on them when you're afraid."

"But hey, what's life without a little adversity?'That had to have been the fakest attempt at optimism since my fourth grade teacher tried reasoning that we were better off without the dead kids in our class because it'd mean more turns on the playground swings for the rest of us."

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd be up for hearing about the one-eyed chick."

"Do you think the memory of someone should dictate how we live going forward?' he asks, threading and unthreading his fingers together.'It depends,' I say. 'I think you can probably honor someone's memory, but you can't live for them, because that means living in the past."

"It's our choices that matter in the end. Not wishes, not words, not promises."

"I knew I wasn't making sence, but I couldn't seem to connect my thoughts to my tongue. That feeling... How did you tell someone that?"

"A mannequin? An unfeeling heartless bitch who feeds on others' misery and is physically incapable of crying, unless it's tears of blood?"

"They call you Medusa. One wrong look and your brain turns to stone."

"Do I look as pretty as I feel?"

"Love was selfish, wasn't it? It made honest men want things they had no right to. It cocooned one from the rest of the world, erased time itself, knocked away reason. It made you live in defiance of the inevitable. It made you want another's mind, body; it made you feel as if you deserved to own their heart, and carve out a place in it."

"Hours of being asked:'Do you understand?' But for all of her answers, she never got around the one question I had wanted to ask.'What does it feel like?"

"I didn't have time for tears anymore. I had questions."

"Hey Boo, I'm in this now, too, & I got a lot of experience playing assholes like they're fucking harps. You need backup, I got you. Stop trying to convince yourself that you're in this alone."

"You'd be surprised how little voice you have when you lose everything."

"My mom said once that education was a privilege not afforded to everyone, but she was wrong - it wasn't a privilege. It was our right. We had the right to a future."

"A moment later, Liam's bright blue eyes opened, and he was seeing me. He just wasn't seeing Ruby."

"But there's a beginning in an end, you know? It's true that you can't reclaim what you had, but you can lock it up behind you. Start fresh."

"Life isn't fair.' I said. 'It's taken me a while to get that. It's always going to disappoint you in some way or another. You'll make plans, and it'll push you in another direction. You will love people, and they'll be taken away no matter how hard you fight to keep them. You'll try for something and won't get it. You don't have to find meaning in it; you don't have to try to change things. You just have to accept the things that are out of your hands and try to take care of yourself. That's your job."

"Familial betrayal is, to me, the most heartbreaking kind - because if you can't trust your family to love you and protect you, who can you really trust?"

"I bet it gets pretty lonely with only your ego for company."

"I was looped in on your little romantic quest. The only way to get me out without it looking suspicious was to suggest that I come after you dumb asses, since I supposedly know your crappy personality so well."

"The end. But I'm telling you now, if either of you breathe a word -one goddamn word- about Cate, I will come down on you so hard, they'll be naming hurricanes after me for a fucking century."

"But part of surviving is being able to move on."

"I pulled myself from his mind, day by day, piece by piece, memory by memory, until there was nothing of Ruby left to weigh him down or keep him bound to my side."

"For the longest time, I saw them as the end of my journey, but now I think they were always meant to represent the beginning of yours."

"You are your abilities and they are you. I can't put it to you more plainly. Do you know why I hate this cure? It's a statement that what we are is inherently wrong. It's a punishment for something that isn't our fault - all because they can't control their fear about what we can do, anymore than they can control their resentment that there are people out there stronger and more powerful than they are. They want to strip you of yourself - your ability to protect and enforce your right to make decisions about your life. Your own body. Mark my words: in the end, it won't be a choice. They'll decide this for you."

"He could silence me, but Rob had no power over my mind."

"When a girl cries, few things are more worthless than a boy."

"The question stayed with me every day, through every class, through every Op. I felt its teeth tighten around the back of my neck each time I was dismissed without a second look; it had locked it's jaws and wouldn't let me or my conscience go."

"See how many doors open, Alastor said, when someone with influence and ideas comes along with a key? Fortune can be hoarded, or it can be shared."

"My fear for you outweighs my fear of him, he said simply. 'And I told you, didn't I? If you left, I'd follow you.But should you try to leave on your own, know that I will go to the ends of the earth to bring you back."

"Like any girl, she still felt the echoes from earlier eras of repression. She'd been raised by a mother who'd fought hard to get a wage she deserved, to have access to education when she lacked every advantage, to travel on her own terms. The idea she was being asked-that she was expected to simply play along-made the blood throb in her veins. She was already in the damn stays. Wasn't the enough?"

"I can't - I can't think about anything or anyone else,' he whispered. A hand drifted up, dragging back through his hair. 'I can't think straight when you're around. I can't sleep. It feels like I can't breathe - I just - 'Liam, please,' I begged. 'You're tired. You're barely over being sick. Let's just... Can we just go back to the others?'I love you.' He turned toward me, that agonized expression still on his face. 'I love you every second of everyday, and I don't understand why, or how to make it stop - ' He looked wild with pain; it pinned me in place, even before what he had said registered in my mind.'I know it's wrong; I know it down to my damn bones. And I feel like I'm sick. I'm trying to be a good person, but I can't. I can't do this anymore."

"And the open road rolled out in front of us."

"When it came to adults, it was better not to talk. They had a way of hearing one thing and processing it as something else. No reason to give them an excuse to hurt you."

"My mom used to say that sometimes just saying something aloud was enought to make it true. I wasn't so sure about that."

"Also, screw you-maybe you can be all stealthy and break into their building to get the woman out, but I can getus there and back safely. I did this for months and never got a second glance from anyone, including PSFs.'Probably because your ugly-ass face blinded them on the first look, she muttered."

"Miss Vida' Liam said 'has anyone never told you that you are positively the whipped cream on the sundae of life?'She glared at him.'Anyone ever told you your head is shaped like a pencil?'That is physically impossible,' Chubs groused.'He'd be__'Actually Liam began, 'Cole once did try to__ What?'Oh,I'm sorry,' Chubs said, 'apparently the middle of my sentence interrupted the beginning of yours. Do continue."

"What mattered was that these beliefs had swept through the souls of everyone else like a plague. He couldn't see the end of it. Even a hundred years in the future, he knew, the roots still had not been fully pulled up from society. Wherever, whenever he went, the color of his skin set the boundaries of what he could achieve, and there was very little - if any - recourse for finding a way around it."

"If she's not alright, I'm going to rip out his heart and eat it.' I nodded. 'You really shouldn't eat raw meat,' Chubs said."

"I know I'm going to shred the skin off your face and turn it into hair ribbons."

"Yes, well-he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose delicately-'the burner phone we had accidentally fell out of the car, and someone accidentally backed over it. Because someone was in a rush after she accidentally alerted some skip tracers we were nearby when she accidentally used her abilities to move a light pole out of the road after she had accidentally backed into it.'Someone better shut their mouth before I accidentally slam my fist into their teeth. She punched his shoulder, and it was almost...playful.'Shut his mouth, fist into his teeth.'Really? A grammar lesson?"

"This kid has more mood swings than a toddler's birthday party."

"I had the strangest feeling - like I had lost something without ever really having it in the first place - that I wasn't what I once was, and wasn't at all what I was meant to be. The sensation made me feel hollow down to my bones."

"The longer you silence a violin, the harder it is for it to find its true voice again."

"Let's carpe the hell out of this diem."

"I had the strangest feeling-like I had lost something without ever really having it in the first place-that i wasn't what I once was, and wasn't at all what I was meant to be."

"I felt the familiar warm tingling at the center of my chest and had just enough time to gasp as some invisible hand yanked me forward, smacking my forehead against the dashboard with enough force to stun me dumb. Chubs slammed on the brakes, forcing my seat belt to do its job and lock against my chest. I was thrown back into my seat, an explosion of colors bursting in my vision. 'Oh, hell no!' Chubs roared, slamming a hand against the steering wheel. 'That's it! We don not use our abilities on one another, goddammit! Behave yourself!"

"Are you driving this slow because you have no idea where we're going, or because you're hoping we jump out of the car & put ourselves out of our misery?"

"Nope,' he whispered, when I tried to tug it away. 'Mine now."