“It doesn’t really matter if you are left behind the back, but what matters is your capacity to pull and push everyone by your way to get to the front.”

“She looked at her right hand, where the index finger was cut to a stump. Some said she lost it in an accident, when she was playing soldier with a live grenade. Others said she was taught a lesson by the law, and they took her trigger finger to make her keep on learning. Those were the lessons the Coilhunter liked. Why, he was quite the teacher himself.”

“Off in the distance there were galleons of shock-white cumulus coulds gathering in the wide sky’s cerulean harbor, and their azure shadows floated over the flatlands. Billy surprised himself by saying: “I love it here. I’ll never leave.”