Origin Quotes
"I’m told that the day I was born, Uncle Paolo held me against his white lab coat and whispered, 'She is perfect.'"
"You are immortal, Pia, and you are perfect, they say."
"The wind, lightly scented with orchids, prowls through the kapoks and palms as if searching for something it lost."
"Water is everywhere, just like every other day in the rainforest. But today it feels colder, less refreshing and more invasive."
"I didn’t even have a chance to tie my shoelaces."
"Indestructible it may be, but my skin feels three sizes too small, and it’s all I can do to keep my breathing steady."
"No matter how difficult the journey is, the goal is always worth it."
"Knows what it is to be surrounded by faces that you love, faces that will one day stop breathing and start to decay while your own will remain frozen outside of time."
"I want to run as far as I want. But that’s ridiculous. My world is Little Cam, and even if I were out there in the jungle, I’d have nowhere to go."
"Because you’ve only got forever, I’d think you’d be the last one in a hurry."
"Uncle Paolo always does. But he also knows I would never be so disobedient as to let his chosen specimen fly free."
"The air is so damp that drops of water appear, almost magically, on my skin."
"To keep my mind from slipping into the past, I mentally run through the day’s schedule."
"The last time my mother hugged me I couldn’t even walk yet."
"A name is a powerful thing. It sets one apart and gives significance."
"For these mortal humans, birthdays are a kind of countdown to the end, the ticking clock of a dwindling life."
"A full moon shines above the kapoks and the palms, but the leaves and vines are so thick that its rays hardly reach the jungle floor."
"I have altered the course of history, my friends, but most important of all, we ourselves have been altered."
"The more I learn about the world, the less I seem to know."
"The night is cool and the air so crisp it makes my senses as acute as Alai’s."
"I don’t need the flashlight yet. I know every inch of Little Cam as well as I know my own reflection."
"These are the notes I hear best, perhaps because they seem more like an amplification of my own pounding heart."
"Once behind the house, I kneel at the hole in the fence and push the heavy leaves of the bromeliads aside."
"I lack nothing in Little Cam. In the jungle there’s only darkness; I don’t know what I think I’ll find in the trees and leaves."
"Freedom. It’s as intoxicating as any drug, a rush of adrenaline through my body."
"Uncle Paolo says there are no such things as demons or angels."
"I’m unable to turn around and go back. Every sound, every glimpse is a breath of sweet, fresh air."
"You’ve wandered far from your cage, Pia bird."
"I’ve only seen an anaconda once. It was dead too. Uncle Timothy shot it."
"I can’t take it all in. But I keep trying. My eyes hardly blink, they are so intent on seeing every detail."
"You really are a scientist. Whenever we contradict one of you, that wall comes up in your eyes."
"You think I’m ugly? That’s the meanest thing anyone has ever said to me! I’m not ugly! I’m...I’m perfect."
"You are in fact very beautiful. More beautiful than any girl I know."
"Maybe we should reinstall the cameras. Never mind the fuss she makes, she’s spoiled enough."
"Of course I did. I went to a damn all-girls private school. I had to learn every trick in the book when it comes to sneaking out, or else die of social deprivation."
"You can’t take someone’s gods away. You can try, but they’ll hide them and pray to them anyway."
"Our eyes show us one side of an object, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t five other sides we can’t see."
"Seeing and understanding are two different things."
"You trust someone who can see the other sides."
"I will speak plainly, Alvez, because we both know what Corpus is capable of. Remember Geneva?"
"Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven."
"No one should live forever, but should give his blood to the river when the time comes so that tomorrow another may live."
"The noblest life is the one laid down for another."
"What is taken from the world must be given back."
"I thought I’d lost you when I saw you with that flower."
"I couldn’t let him hurt anyone else, not because of me."
"I love Ai’oa, Eio, just like you do. And…I love you too, Eio."
"You’re not really one of them, but that didn’t sway her either."
"Every day I think of them... Reminding me how fragile this life is and how easily it can be lost."