"It’s too damn cold of a day to be out on a hunt."
"Anyone who’s ever fallen on hard times will understand the nearly constant stream of numbers that run through my mind."
"But I haven’t exactly had a normal adolescence."
"Death has a terrible habit of cutting straight through every careful line you’ve drawn between your present and your future."
"What did I care, anyway? My father was gone and I was so tired."
"You just need to fool the audience into thinking it’s real."
"With the press of a tiny button on its side, the glasses could also switch back and forth like polarized lenses between the virtual world and the real world."
"You have to learn to look at the whole of something, not just the parts. Relax your eyes. Take in the entire image at once."
"To see my solution working, functioning, on the screen. To realize that, with three little lines of text, I had the power to command a machine to do exactly what I wanted."
"Everyone has a different way of escaping the dark stillness of their mind. This, I learned, was mine."
"Welcome to the Warcross Opening Ceremony Game."
"A rare power-up, indeed. Sudden Death can render a player of your choice frozen for the rest of the game, useless to his or her teammates."
"Every locked door has a key. But this time, I’ve reached the end."
"It’s the number for Henka Games’ Manhattan headquarters."
"It’s my private jet. It will take off whenever you are in it."
"This is one of the most advanced planes in the world. It’s supersonic. From here, we’ll travel to Tokyo in less than ten hours."
"Everything's science fiction until someone makes it science fact."
"The human body produces at least one hundred watts of electricity a day."
"If you want to know whether or not I’m Zero, you could just ask me."
"My father taught me how to take in everything at once. You don’t have to break down every detail. You just need to see the overall pattern to catch the weakness in it."
"The nature of the attacks makes me suspect that Zero is one of them."
"If you decide you want to turn this down, that this is more than you want to deal with, I’ll have you on a private flight back to New York."
"Ten million dollars. I could win it big. I’d never have to worry about debt again. I could be safe for life."
"You should know that Hideo has never hired someone that quickly. Ever."
"We need some good fresh blood. There’s nothing generous about wanting the best for my team."
"You’re a weapon in disguise—and I intend to keep it that way until our first game."
"Each thing in here costs more than my entire debt before Hideo erased it."
"At this very moment, other hunters are probably hot on Zero's trail, reporting their findings to Hideo."
"Everyone in the world is connected in some way to everyone else."
"I’m standing inside a level that few will ever get to see, with some of the most famous players in the world."
"The benefits of alternate reality deserve to be given to all."
"You get tunnel vision. Hammie is a world-class Thief. She’s probably faster and nimbler than any Thief you’ve ever played against."
"That’s the fun of playing a wild card, isn’t it? You never know what kind of player you’ll get."
"Your team captain. The exercise didn’t end when you grabbed the power-up first. It ends when you hand it over to me."
"Hackers and bounty hunters aren’t exactly known for being great team players."
"Thieves aren’t supposed to have daggers in their possession—Fighters are."
"You put up a hell of a fight, Emi. You’re just going to have to fight a little bit harder to beat me."
"An infinite shield requires an infinite key."
"I wouldn’t have put you there if you couldn’t handle it."
"You can prepare for it all you want, but the only way to truly understand it is to head in."
"It sends a thrill through me of both excitement and urgency."
"He’s so close now that, if he wanted, he could lean forward and kiss me—and I find myself leaning toward him, too, hoping that he’ll close the gap between us."
"I’m no such thing. See you in the dome, Emika."
"Your moral support is going to distract me in the arena."
"And are you able to forget? Do your bruised knuckles give you release?"
"I think we know the answer to both those questions."
"The realization hits me so hard that I can barely breathe."
"Everything has a solution. Why can't I find this one?"
"You're his hunter. He has hired you to tell him what he needs to know."
"Objects have souls. The more love you put into one, the more beautiful it becomes."
"It's too easy to lose yourself in an illusion."
"This isn’t the first time someone has targeted me, and it won’t be the last."
"You don’t need to give me a reason for coming over."
"Stay out of my way, and I might return them to you. Continue, and this will only be the beginning."
"When you refuse to ask for help, it tells others that they also shouldn’t ask for help from you. That you look down on them for needing your help. That you like feeling superior to them. It’s an insult, Emi, to your friends and peers. So don’t be like that. Let us in."
"You think I’m just here for the money? You think you can fix everything by writing a check?"
"My old, familiar panic is rising up again, the terror of seeing the wall go up between the problem and the solution. Of standing helplessly by while danger circles someone I love."
"If things go wrong in the game today because of Zero, at least I’ll have a recording to study."
"In the center of the circular lake, ten steel bridges—none of them connected—extend out to the walls like a star."
"Let’s tear through Tokyo from zero to sixty / yeah, like we’re running out of time in this city."
"Let’s go out with a bang / yeah, it’s time to go out with a bang."
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Silver Circle!"
"If I’m going to glitch myself into his place, I’d better make sure I can do it on my first try."
"Metal slams against metal as we both go tumbling off the bridge and into the lake."
"The world suddenly stops, as if paused mid-frame in a movie."
"You are controlling how people think... with code?"
"The NeuroLink can tell when a user’s emotions shift to anger."
"The code will adapt to each person’s mind. It will fine-tune itself, improve itself."
"What if the dictator is an algorithm? A code?"
"I’m tired of the horror in the world. So I will force it to end."