"We've gotta become the Martians. I'm a Martian - I tell you to become Martians. And we've gotta go to Mars and civilize Mars and build a whole civilization on Mars and then move out, 300 years from now into the universe. And when we do that, we have a chance of living forever."

"See, heroes never die. John Wayne isn't dead, Elvis isn't dead. Otherwise you don’t have a hero. You can’t kill a hero. That’s why I never let him get older."

"I saw a bullfrog snap a tiny bird off a reed once, swallowing it just like that, grinding the singing thing to foodstuff in its slimy belly, and the witnessing of that act produced in me an insight: that this moment of terror before resignation was possibly the only ascertainable moment of truth we can ever know in life."

"Richard began to understand darkness: darkness as something solid and real, so much more than a simple absence of light. He felt it touch his skin, questing, moving, exploring: gliding through his mind. It slipped into his lungs, behind his eyes, into his mouth..."

"The cancer bubble. It's almost like he's not here. Like he's on pause, and my life with him is on pause, and we're just waiting to see if somebody is going to hit play again or just stop the thing entirely."

"I believe it went like this—and stop me if I’m wrong, Mousey: ‘Listen, we may not be our own continent and everything, but we have a big country over in America too."

"But there was something terrifying taking over her thoughts, and it wouldn't leave. Out of seven billion sharing the planet with her, not one of them knew what was going through her head. Not one of them knew that she was lost. Not one of them asked."