"Oh, come on, Marco," Cassie chided gently. "It's an opportunity to try out a new morph!" "Yeah," Jake chided. "Instead of being home doing math homework, you get to turn into a wolf. Are you going to tell me you'd rather be doing equations?" "Let's see," Marco considered. "Math? Or becoming a wolf and going off to find aliens? Maybe I should ask the school counselor what she thinks. It's such a common problem. I'm sure she'd have some good advice."

"Look, these aren't people we know," Marco argued. "They aren't my friends. Or my family." He shot a guilty look at Jake. "And we did everything we could for Tom. So why should I get killed for strangers? We can't stay lucky forever. Sooner or later, we'll slip up. Sooner or later we'll be standing around here crying because Jake or Rachel or Cassie or Tobias is gone." "You know something?" Rachel exploded. "I'm tired of trying to talk you into this, Marco. You want out? Fine, you're OUT!" "Hey, Rachel, you're not just doing this to help save the human race," Marco yelled back. "You get off on the danger. That's why you went with Tobias to free that bird. That wasn't about saving the world. That was about rescuing some stupid bird."

"I hated the way they all felt sorry for me. All they could see was that I was not what I used to be. All they saw was that I had no home. But they didn't really understand. I hadn't had a real home since my parents died. I was used to being alone. And I had the sky."

"Rachel: Nothing, I was just going to say maybe you should see a counselor before your condition worsens."

"Marco: What's wrong with dreaming about King Friday?"

"Rachel: You have dreams about King Friday?"

"Marco: No, I haven't had any weird dreams about the sea," Marco said. "I've had weird dreams about my sheets trying to strangle me. I've had weird dreams about falling from way up high and when I finally land I'm in Mister Rogers's Neighborhood talking to King Friday. I've had weird dreams about that woman on Baywatch... hmm, well, that does kind of involve the ocean, I guess."

"Be happy for me, and for all who fly free."

"I could have run after him, following the trail of blood. If I'd called Mr. Crepsley, we could have tracked him down and put an end to Steve Leopard and his threats. It would have been the wise thing to do. But I didn't. I couldn't. He was my friend."

"This is a true story. I don't expect you to believe me- I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't lived it- but it is. Everything I describe in this book happened, just as I tell it. The thing about real life is, when you do something stupid, it normally costs you. In books, the heroes can make as many mistakes as they like. It doesn't matter what they do, because everything works out in the end. They'll beat the bad guys and put things right and everything winds up cool. In real life, vacuum cleaners kill spiders. If you cross a busy road without looking, you get whacked by a car. If you fall out of a tree, you break some bones. Real life's nasty. It's cruel. It doesn't care about heroes and happy endings and the way things should be. In real life, bad things often happen. People die. Fights are lost. Evil often wins. I just wanted to make that clear before I begin."

"My name is Darren Shan. I'm a half-vampire."

"I do give the other guy a chance to learn what he’s doing before I insist on perfection."

"...for we humans do, when the cause is sufficient, spend our own lives. We throw ourselves onto the grenade to save our buddies in the foxhole. We rise out of the trenches and charge the entrenched enemy and die like maggots under a blowtorch. We strap bombs on our bodies and blow ourselves up in the midst of our enemies. We are, when the cause is sufficient, insane."

"If I had a plan, I'd take control. I have no plan. So for good or ill, it's Ender's game not mine."

"Suddenly a vast eruption licked outward toward the last of the human fighters, Petra' s ships, on which there might or might not still be men alive to see death coming at them. To see their victory approach."

"“O my son Absalom,” Bean said softly, knowing for the first time the kind of anguish that could tear such words from a man’s mouth. “my son, my son Absalom. Would God I could die for thee, O Absalom, my son. My sons!”"

"If someone runs after your car, screaming and waving his arms, you know that something significant is intended, even if you can't hear a word he's saying."

"He hadn't realized how much he needed the honor of others until he finally got it."

"Soldiers don't like to lose. And that is why losing is a much more powerful teacher than winning."

"Soldiers do not give the other guy a sporting chance. Soldiers shoot in the back, lay traps and ambushes, lie to the enemy and outnumber the other bastard every chance they get. Your kind of murder only works among civilians."

"Fools always look up for power. People above you, they never want to share power with you. Why you look to them? They give you nothing. People below you, you give them hope, you give them respect, they give you power, cause they don't think they have any, so they don't mind giving it up."

"The more Sister Carlotta explained it, the less he understood it. Because if there was somebody in charge, then he ought to be fair, and if he wasn't fair, then why should Sister Carlotta be so happy that he was in charge?"

"I just... I'm saying that God must have been watching over you." "Yeah. Well, sure. So why didn't he watch over all those dead kids?" "He took them to his heart and loved them." "So then he didn't love me?" "No, he loved you too, he — " "Cause if he was watching so careful, he could have given me something to eat now and then."

"Male and female he created them. Making his image anatomically vague, one must suppose."

"Will I die from her mistakes too? No, I'll die from my own damn mistakes!"

"Analyzing things was fine, but good reflexes could save your life."

""I’m not stupid!" In [his] experience, that was a sentence never uttered except to prove its own inaccuracy."

"Know, think, choose, do."

"Trying to shock nuns is not much sport. There is no trophy."

"Christians have been expecting the imminent end of the world for millennia." "But it keeps not ending." "So far, so good."

"Isn't that what it means to be civilized? That you can wait to get what you want?"

"Once they understood our autonomy, the seed of their defeat was sown."

"Humans will always act to preserve their own lives — except for the times when they don’t."

"Most victories came from instantly exploiting your enemy's stupid mistakes, and not from any particular brilliance in your own plan."

"Sometimes the other side is irresistibly strong, and then the only sensible course of action is to retreat in order to save your force to fight another day."

"Sometimes you have to tell people the truth and ask them to do the thing you want, instead of trying to trick them into it."

"Doesn’t it occur to you that the very fact that you’re asking me this question tells me there’s something else for me to figure out, and therefore greatly increases the chance that I will figure it out?"

"You can’t rule out the impossible, because you never know which of your assumptions about what was possible might turn out, in the real universe, to be false."

"Please stop reassuring me of how respectful you are whenever you’re about to tell me that I’m an idiot."

"Ender was what Bean only wished to be — the kind of person on whom you could put all your hopes, who could carry all your fears, and he would not let you down, would not betray you. I want to be the kind of boy you are, thought Bean. But I don’t want to go through what you’ve been through to get there."

"Ender Wiggin was not larger than life, Bean knew. He was exactly life-sized, and so his larger-than-life burden was too much for him. And yet he was bearing it. So far."

"Bean’s powers of analysis were extraordinary. So, also, were his powers of deception. Some of Bean’s guesses weren’t right — but was that because he didn’t know the truth, or because he simply didn’t want them to know how much he knew, or how much he guessed."

"Somebody has to roll the dice. Mine are the hands that hold those dice. I’m not a bureaucrat, placing my career above the larger purposes I was put here to serve. I will not put the dice in someone else’s hands, or pretend that I don’t have the choice I have."

"The commander must be able to change his plans abruptly when obstacles or opportunities appear. If his army isn’t ready and willing to respond to his will, his cleverness comes to nothing."

"An eye for an eye? How Christian of you." "Unbelievers always want other people to act like Christians."

"He dreamed, as human beings always dreamed — random firings of memory and imagination that the unconscious mind tries to put together into coherent stories."

"She wanted to give God credit for every good thing, but when it was bad, then she didn’t mention God or had some reason why it was a good thing after all."

""Ain't worth a Bean," she said."

"You aren't the only enemies the Ra'zac have. I was tracking them."

"Durza: Congratulations. You've just been promoted."