“When they lived in Key West Justin thought the Everything lived in the ocean. Sometimes he thought the ocean was God. But if the Everything lives anywhere, it's in a river. Because the river moves along and touches every little thing on it's way. An he thinks the Everything would be quiet like a river. Event still sometimes. The ocean is always moving and noisy. The sky's always changing. But rivers are always there, even when the water has moved on. You've got to find the Everything wherever you are.”

“nothing starts out as rubbish. Things become rubbish when they are treated as rubbish.”

“One does so hate to admit that the average woman is kinder, finer, more quick of sympathy and on the whole so much more first class than the average man.”

“Love was not blind, but it might mimic a deteriorating case of cataracts.”

“Maybe this is what it meant to be a citizen of a place - bonded to each other by the histories thrust upon us.”

“I hate them," Enna said. "Whoever is responsible for making me sleep outside without pillows, I hate them." Mmm-hmmm...," Dasha said. Rin had noticed that the Tiran girl often had trouble remembering how to speak in the morning. If Finn were here," Enna continued to mumble as she rewrapped her head cloth, "he'd let me rest my head on his chest at night. Or leg. Or arm. And then he'd find whoever was responsible for the whole sleeping outside with no pillows situation and hold him while I kicked him in the shins.”

“Humming the Star Wars theme to encourage myself, I wobbled onto my feet. Sometimes a girl's gotta provide her own trumpet-heavy heroic soundtrack.”

“Beginning to live as though there's no such thing as other people's children might be our most critical, significant contribution to the flourishing of our own world.”