Partials Quotes

"To find a way, somehow, to help a human child survive."

"There are a lot of medical interns who would give their right eye for your spot here."

"One of these days the researchers will find a pattern in this data and use it to synthesize a cure."

"Fail to record it, and this child died for nothing."

"You want to be happy," said Nandita, reaching past Kira to the open cupboard and pulling out the entire stack of dishes. "That’s what everybody wants. You just don’t know what will make you happy."

"Happiness is the most natural thing in the world when you have it, and the slowest, strangest, most impossible thing when you don’t."

"You make your own choices, Kira, and you can’t let anyone ever take that away from you."

"You don’t have to save the world. You’re a medic—not even a full medic yet, you’re an intern."

"By living in the present. The world is already over, Kira."

"I didn’t study medicine to watch people die."

"I find it hard to believe that I need to spell out for you how dangerous this is."

"The world across the line was pretty different."

"Sometimes I think this island doesn’t even know we’re here."

"There’s no point even leaving a record behind, because there will never be anyone, ever again, who can read it."

"Forget extinction—I’m dying the day all our vegetable oil finally runs out."

"All joking aside, that thing almost killed you in the field, and now you have to work with it."

"If this is what Para-Gen was going for when they started making artificial people, now I’m even sadder that it went nuts and tried to kill us."

"If someone’s on watch and sees something, a human would have to shout a warning, and then the other humans would have to wake up and figure out what the watchman was saying, and then they’d have to get ready for combat. If a Partial watchman sees something, the data goes out through the link and the other soldiers know it immediately; their adrenaline spikes, their heart rates speed up, their fight-or-flight reflex kicks in, and suddenly the entire squad is ready for battle, sometimes without even a word."

"We hated you," he said. "I hated you." He turned his head to catch her eye. "But I didn’t want genocide. None of us did."

"The American colonies rebelled against England almost three hundred years ago today," said Kira. "They got over it, and eventually they were best friends."

"You’re using my own data against me, and now I—damn it." He closed his mouth and looked at the ceiling.

"I don’t know how you people even function. It’s no wonder you lost the war."

"Twelve years ago I would have sent you home with tampons and Tylenol," said Nurse Hardy, "but these days we don’t mess around."

"You called me a biological robot yesterday," said Samm. "That’s not entirely inaccurate." He smiled, the first time she’d ever really seen him do that, and she did the same.

"It’s like a chemical empathy system," she said softly, walking back toward Samm. "Whatever you’re feeling, you broadcast with these pheromones, so that other Partials can feel it too. Or, at least know that you’re feeling it."

"I’d forgotten that humans couldn’t link," said Samm. "All this time I’ve been so confused, trying to figure out why you were all so melodramatic about everything. It’s because you can’t pick up each other’s emotions from the link, so you have to broadcast them through voice inflection and body language."

"It means you’re going to be okay," said Kira. "It means the placenta is pulling away from the uterus, which isn’t good but isn’t really threatening to you or to the baby if we stay on top of it."

"I can’t bear to see Madison like Ariel, pounding helplessly on a window just for the chance to hold her dead baby."

"Your government just gave you two months to get knocked up."

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe something is more important than your rights?"

"We either solve our problems or we go extinct—there is nothing in between."

"I’m just sick of hearing about everyone’s civil rights and everyone’s privacy and everyone’s inviolable power of choice."

"Mass pregnancy is the worst possible solution to that problem."

"The law is passed. Now we can complain about it, or we can get drunk enough to not care."

"We don’t have any children left, just adults who don’t know what they’re doing."

"If you can’t know the truth, live the most awesome lie you can think of."

"Yeah, I guess awesome dreams are all we have left."

"The only hope, for either of us, is to help each other."

"What do you think it says about us that we don’t have any parents?"

"It’s the most basic instinct of life—to outlive yourself."

"You need our help to cure RM, but we need you just as much."

"They shouldn’t be doing this to you. It’s inhumane."

"The babies are born healthy and then the virus hits them."

"There’s someone here, someone sneaking around."

"You have to help me. One more shock … and I’m..."

"I’m sorry, Xochi, you know I didn’t mean it."

"I don’t want it to be because Xochi Kessler was too worried about her rights to pitch in and save us."

"You either solve our problems or we go extinct."

"We’re talking about the government taking full control over your body."

"I’m not ready to be pregnant. Not like this."

"If we’re going to go extinct, I don’t want it to be because we were too worried about our rights."

"I’m getting really sick of trusting this guy," said Xochi.

"I helped you this time," said Samm. "I helped you get away. What more do you want from me?"

"Madison was close to delivering when we left East Meadow, and Arwen might already be dying. But we can save her."

"Is that really what you want? To hide and be safe?"

"I want to know what’s going on, and why. And I want to fix it."

"You learn what you can," said Samm, "and I’ll do the same."

"If there is one thing you know about me, it’s that I always try to do the right thing."