"Max, if you survive your final test, can you steal me one of those magic outfits for me?" I'll try to get one for each of us. Hey! 'If'?"

"Well, that's an evil smile..."

"Q: You'er presented with a smooth-faced, eight-foot-high wooden wall. Your objective? Get over it. To, like, save comrades or something. How to accomplish this?A: Take a running start, brace one foot against the wall, throw one hand to the top, try to hang on long enough for a comrade to either grab your hand at the top or for another comrade to push your butt up from below. It takes team work! over it."

"Meaning what? We're going to pretend nothing's going on? That's stupid. The only way to deal with any of this is to get it out in the open."Have you been watching Oprah again?"

"That was the funniest thing I'd heard in days.You're kidding, right? PLEASE tell me you have a stronger motive for me than 'fair is fair.' Life isn't FAIR, Dean....Nothing is fair, EVER. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I need to help you because FAIR IS FAIR? Try, 'I need you to help me so I won't rip out your spine and beat you with it.' I MIGHT respond to that. MAYBE."

"Now, Max, I think we both know your parents aren't missionaries."I opened my eyes wide. "No? Well, for God's sake, don't tell them. They'd be crushed. Thinking they're doing the Lord's work and all."

"How did you become blind, uh, Jeff is it?"Yeah, Jeff. Well, I looked directly at the sun, you know, the way they always tell you not to. If only I had listened."

"Max, you're the last of the hybrids who still has...a soul.' ... 'She doesn't have soul,' Gazzy scoffed. 'Have you ever seen her dance?"

"What happened to your tan?"--Fang"It was dirt." --Max"

"I feel like, like pudding," Iggy groaned. "Pudding with nerve endings. Pudding in great pain."

"I can talk to fish!" Angel said happily, water dripping off her long, skinny body. "Ask one over for dinner," Fang said, joining us."

"They turned to Angel. "We will call you Little One," the leader said, obviously deciding to dispense with the whole confusing name thing."Okay," said Angel agreeably. "I'll call you Guy in a White Lab Coat." He frowned."That can be his Indian name," I suggested."

"Man, you weigh a freaking ton," he told me. "What've you been eating, rocks?" "Why, is your head missing some?" I croaked. His mouth almost quirked in a smile, and that's when I knew how upset he'd been"

"Basically, I have two speeds.... Hostile or smart-aleck. Your choice."

"Love means never having to be apart"

"It's been said that love finds you when you're ready."

"Just because life is hard, and always ends in a bad way, doesn't mean that all stories have to, even if that's what they tell us in school and in the New York Times Review. In fact, it's a good thing that stories are as different as we are, one from another."

"But what is life if you don't live it?"

"Good memories are like charms...Each is special. You collect them, one by one, until one day you look back and discover they make a long, colorful bracelet."

"Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And you're keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls...are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered."

"Who, last time I'd checked, was still on our official archenemy list. (Yes, we have to keep a list. It's kind of sad.)"

"I'm a girl of extremes. When I love something, I'm like a puppy dog (without all the licking). When I'm cranky, I'm a wasp (like a whole hive of 'em). And when I'm angry, I'm a Mother Bear with a predator after her cubs: Dangerous."