Quotes from Scott Westerfeld

Yeah, exactly. But, actually, boards prefer iron. All that glitters is not hovery.

She wondered if if there was anyone out there, really, or if David was just some story the Uglies made up to scare each other.

Sometimes wanting isn't enough, Alek. You know that.

Humanity is central, Laurent, the only thing that matters. We are what puts good and evil in this universe. Not gods or dead people. Not machines. Us.

But books don't happen by accident.

Never laugh at a kiss. A kiss was mysterious and powerful, fragile and invincible. Like any spark, a kiss might fizzle into nothing, or consume an entire forest. A kiss was no laughing matter.

But we lost so much in the Prettytime - all the foundations were gone. So we're stuck making it up as we go along! Tally laughed. So what else is new, Frizz? Life doesn't come with an instruction manual. So don't tell me that humanity being logic-missing is my fault.

Writing fairies can get grumpy in a new house," Johari said. "Like cats. Mine pissed on the pillows every night for a week after I moved up to New York.

Well, this was the door out of my stupid perfect world, a door for calamities and configurations, and for when things were on fire...

In this city, apparently, the authorities crushed revolutions before they started, by turning them into homework.

Dess took a deep breath, feeling a rush of relief now that the proclamation had been made. It was sort of like being the first astronomer to spot one of those big dinosaur-extermination-sized asteroids on its way toward Earth. Sure, this was majorly unpleasant news for everyone, including Dess personally, but at least she got to announce it.

She started spending more time looking out the window than at her own reflection, as is often the case with troublesome girls.

Tally really didn't have the strength to explain that she'd really meant her hangover, which was sprawled in her head like an overweight cat, sullen and squishy and disinclined to budge.

everyone in the city is manipulated. The purpose of everything we're taught is to make us afraid of change.

We all steal," Standerson said. "The trick is to steal from regular people, not other novelists.

Tally closed her eyes, remembering what having a pretty mind was like—everything vague and fuzzy, the world nothing but a source of entertainment, the future nothing but a blur. A few tricks weren't enough to make everyone bubbly, she supposed; you had to want your mind to change. Maybe some people had always been pretty-heads

Everyone ugly was in bed by now.

Gods are so last year," Hiro said, and Aya smiled.

Shay, I never would have gotten used to the idea. I don't want to be ugly all my life. I want those perfect eyes and lips, and for everyone to look at me and gasp. And for everyone who sees me to think Who's that? and want to get to know me, and listen to what I say." "I'd rather have something to say.

You're still yourself on the inside, Shay. But when you're pretty, people pay more attention." "Not everyone thinks that way." "Are you sure about that? That you can beat evolution by being smart or interesting?

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. - Jeanette Rankin

Life doesn't come with an instruction manual.

Probably? So you're asking me to trust my life to steel wool and peanut butter?" "Poisoned peanut butter." "Cal, I don't care if it's nuclear peanut butter.

Sometimes it felt like her life was a series of falls from ever-greater heights.