"Mother father sister teacher other. Lately only sister and others. Saying things. Some words he got. Pete. Petey. Little Pete. He knew those words."
"On the other side—the agitated, jangly, hard side—his sister, her face a stretched mask beneath yellow hair, a mouth of pink and glittery white, loud, was pushing at him with hands like hammers."
"Peace. Quiet. Nothingness. It would whisper these thoughts to him."
"You know I’m going to say no, Sam," she said.
"If you're thirsty, stop crying," Albert snapped. "What do you think tears are made of?"
"As long as they do their work they can flip me off all they like."
"Someone else’s problem. He had plenty of his own."
"It's not a popularity contest, Sam. People love you when they need you, and then ten minutes later they're tired of you."
"I don’t think my saltwater still is going to work."
"It’s a good idea to have someone around who’s smarter than you are."
"Maybe I am greedy, but without me no one eats. Or drinks."
"I’m not saying I shouldn’t be scared. I’ve heard some of the stories about you. About what happened. You went up against this gaiaphage thing all by yourself. Which means you are the second bravest girl I ever met. So I probably should be scared. I’m just not."
"Death, that’s the end of pain. No, no killing. But I will whip you."
"Why did we have to sneak out of town in the nighttime?"
"Sam. I am the smartest, hottest girl in the world. So do what I tell you. Good boy. Down, boy. Down!"
"You might want to think about how hard it would be to walk if someone were to turn off gravity under your feet every now and then."
"I’m just saying: you can see where that could make a long walk just a lot longer."
"We are sneaking out at night so that everyone doesn’t know we’re gone and why."
"Who are these people you’re worried about? Penny? Bug?"
"The FAYZ diet. First, you eat all the junk food you can. Then you starve."
"She tried not to think about Jennifer’s story. Jennifer wasn’t backing off her tale: she had seen the other Jennifer cough herself to death."
"The flu had laughed at the Tylenol she gave Pookie."
"Sunlight is supposed to kill flu virus on your skin."
"She remembered reading about flu, though. Nothing spread faster. Nothing mutated and adapted faster."
"But once it was in your nose and lungs it could go crazy and kill you."
"It was like they had some magical power to shrug off his deadly light."
"The two of them sat there looking at each other. It seemed to go on for quite a while."
"I connected. It’s not very complicated. I just had a feeling..."
"It’s . . . It’s like life is all right again. Like the universe has finally decided to smile at us."
"We all eat rats. And glad to get a good juicy one, too."
"Just because we’re living large doesn’t mean people at home are."
"I’ll do whatever. But the magic isn’t working on this thing."
"The virus learns, comes back ready for a new fight."
"This is some freak show where nothing works exactly the way it should."
"Maybe when he was older. Maybe when he got a career and a house and a wife and all the other things that cause wild boys to turn into men."
"Because you are the only human being I need."
"I wasn’t brave or strong but I wasn’t bad, either."
"Like a big claw holding your heart. Like icicles in your brain."
"His ways were not knowable to her. His time was not her time. His will be done."
"She herself was something outside of nature."
"The eyes were arresting: royal blue irises that could almost pass as human."
"Fear, yes, but the Darkness deserved his fear. His fear and his devotion."
"She’d hoped to see that Albert’s people were delivering water and food and the epidemic was past."
"It was like stumbling into the Garden of Eden."
"It's not like it ever got cold in the FAYZ, not like anyone needed insulation. Just a roof to keep the sunlight off them."
"It wasn’t perfect. But for the FAYZ it was heaven."
"It was not Drake but Brittney who finally came to the place where the gaiaphage lay."
"The cavern was vast, impossibly huge. As if someone had sunk a sports stadium into the earth."
"She knew what it was and where she was. This was the bottom of the FAYZ wall, the bottom of the giant bubble."
"She felt her every thought opened, like so many files on a computer, each opened, observed, understood."
"She was nothing. She saw that now. She was nothing."
"No God in His Heaven had created the gaiaphage. And here, now, in the airless pit, no God could save her."
"Her dead brother was an angel. Not with wings and all of that, but she knew he was an angel."
"It was as if every single thing he had ever done had come together to form this perfect, ultimate moment of crystalline joy."
"He thought he might die from the pleasure he felt, so much emotion, a flood, a storm, a crashing of planets!"
"She was pinioned by half a dozen of the tongues and now the rest of the bugs were closing in to chew her up, mandibles slicing the air like scimitars."
"Astrid had never felt anything like that red-misted rage before in her life."
"Would she ever be herself again? Or had Astrid, the old Astrid, died, to be replaced by this new creature, this angry, frightened witch?"
"The true revelation was the joy she’d felt at that moment."
"But the God she had believed in was not there anymore."
"Was she losing her faith? Had she lost it already?"
"If you’ve asked for forgiveness, and if you felt truly sorry, then God has forgiven you for that little boy."
"There’s no God in the FAYZ, didn’t you know that?"
"You find anything, you better share," Lana called after her dog.
"Okay," Sam yelled over the throb of the engines. "Toto, when we get there you pump like crazy, right?"
"Justice! Quick and sure and without a lot of meaningless delay."
"Again and again he came back to the realization that there were only two people with the power to stop the creatures."
"Listen, guys, I don’t see a winning move here. Not from me, anyway. It’s going to be on Edilio and the people back in town."
"His imagination went to Astrid. Too many awful pictures of what could happen to her crowded his head."
"I don’t know if they know what’s coming. So we have to warn them."
"Next to Pete, me, Caine, all of us, we’re like...like popguns compared to a cannon."
"It’s like having a nuclear weapon in the hands of, well, a little autistic kid."
"It’s your gift, Sam. It has been right from the start."
"Probably wouldn’t work anyway. The Pete thing, I mean."
"This was the FAYZ. And just because they were due for some good news didn’t mean any was coming."
"I’m thinking, Sam said, that the FAYZ is a big bubble. Like a...what are those things with water inside and you shake them up with snow and—"
"Like a snow globe. And if you have a bubble inside that snow globe, what does it do? It rises to the top, right?"
"They can be crushed. And I think maybe they can be blown up."
"Fighting these superbugs plus Drake? Suddenly the island seemed very, very inviting."
"He had picked the wrong place for this fight."
"Right and wrong doesn't come from God. It’s inside us."
"If you want to get to Petey, you have to go through me."
"Really no time for chitchat," Brianna laid her knife against his throat.
"On the ground, all over the place. Pump it!" Brianna commanded.
"When you get to hell tell the gaiaphage the Breeze says, 'Hi!'" Brianna declared.
"Whatever," he said, as flashing mouthparts closed in on him.
"You can't kill me. And you can't stop my army."
"Don't give up on me, Dekka. Don't give up on me."
"Just thanks," Brianna said. "She just said thanks."
"Let's get out of here before Drake comes back," Jack said.
"No one is dying," Jack said harshly. "We've had enough of that."
"God in your heaven, look down and take pity on this girl. She has done enough."
"Yeah, but there's a couple of saints mixed in with the crazies."
"You are too humble. Too willing to step aside."
"I feed these kids," he said to Caine. "I do it my way."
"But you can't organize or plan ahead and you won't just put your foot down and make things happen."
"I'm going to Ralph's. Anyone coming with me, head over there."