MIRANDA
‘...Miranda seized by a loneliness she couldn’t explain. She thought she knew everything. There was to know about this remnant fleet, but she was unprepared for its beauty.’ (p28)
'...the comics had been produced at great expense, all those bright images, that archival paper, so actually not comics at all in the traditionally mass-produced sense, possibly someone’s vanity project.' (p42)
Dr. Eleven: What was it like for you, at the end?
Captain Lonagan: It was exactly like waking up from a dream. (p330)
Miranda described as ‘inscrutable’ (p67)
Miranda comments that Kirsten 'would probably grow up unadventurous and well-groomed' - ironic (p213)
'They are always waiting, the people of the Undersea. They spend all their lives waiting for their lives to begin.' (p86)
'The rest sentence of the assassin’s note rang true: we were not meant for this world. I returned to my city, to my shattered life and damaged home, to my loneliness, and tried to forget the sweetness of life on Earth.' (p135)
ARTHUR
'Arthur’s (coat) is magniɹcent, smooth and expensive-looking, Miranda’s a battered peacoat that she found in a thrift store for ten dollars.' (p68)
Jeevan and Arthur connection Jeevan‘s previous life as paparazzi Arthur reveals that he’s going to leave Elizabeth (p167)
Miranda is 17 when she first meets Arthur (p76)
Arthur links to 'the centaur' third wife (p67)
' “Arthur looks up. Beat.” Was he acting?' (p211)
'The king stood in a pool pf blue light, unmoored' (p1)
JEEVAN
“I’m a man of my word,” Jeevan said. At that point in his directionless life he wasn’t sure if this was true or not, but it was nice to think that it might be. ' (p171)
'Jeevan liked being the man to whom people turned in bad moments, it meant a great deal to him to be able to help'.
'He rarely thinks of his old life anymore, although he has dreams sometimes about a stage, an actor fallen in the shimmering snow, and other dreams where he’s pushing shopping carts through blizzards.' (p312)
'The boy turns to his parents and for an instant in the twilight he looks like his namesake, like Jeevan’s brother.' (p313)
'Always these memories, barely submerged.' (p313)
' “I don’t want to let go,” Jeevan said'
p275: Darius love juxtaposed with Laura ‘s indifference towards Jeevan.
p269: Jeevan in Year 15 is a doctor and happily married; p270 include more details on Jeevan’s growth.
p102: Miranda meets Jeevan, who photographs her moments after Miranda realises Arthur is having an affair with Elizabeth. This photo recurs throughout the book.
TYLER/PROPHET
'Have you considered the perfection of the virus?' (p60)
'Then came a virus like an avenging angel unsurvivable a microbe that reduced the population of the fallen world by what I submit my beloved people that such a perfect agent of death could only be divine for we have ran of such a cleansing on earth have we not The great cleansing that we suffered 20 years ago? That flu was our flood?' (p60)
'He kept to himself mostly, reading his comic books or Elizabeth’s copy of the New Testament.' (p252)
“But why did they die instead of us?” (p259)
'"One day her plagues will overtake her. Death, mourning, and famine. She will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her."' (p259)
'This is a place of order. People with chaos in their hearts cannot abide here. '(61)
KIRSTEN
‘20 years earlier in a life she mostly couldn’t remember. She had a small non-speaking role in a short-lived Toronto production of King Leah.’ (p35)
'Nothing in Kirsten‘s collection suggested the Arthur Leander she remembered, but what did she actually remember? Arthur was a fleeting impression of kindness and grey hair, and man who'd once pressed two comic books into her hands.' (p41)
'...the clearest memory she retained from before the collapse: a stage, a man in a suit talking to her while Arthur still on his back.' (p41)
Kirsten 'had no memory whatsoever of that first year.' (p61)
' "I actually don’t remember that year at all.... Absolutely nothing.... I can’t remember the year we spent on the road, and I think that means I can’t remember the worst of it. But my point is, doesn’t it seem to you that the people who have the hardest time in this—this current era, whatever you want to call it, the world after the Georgia Flu—doesn’t it seem like the people who struggle the most with it are the people who remember the old world clearly?..... What I mean to say is, the more you remember, the
more you’ve lost.' (195)
Kirsten found herself wondering, as she always did when she saw children, if it was better or worse to have never known any world except the one after the Georgia Flu. (p147)
'The reassuring weight of knives on her belt.' (p65)
'...if she reached far enough with her thoughts she might find someone waiting, that if the two people were to cast their thoughts outward at the same moment they might somehow meet in the middle.' (p121)
'...they tell you that they were saved from the Georgia Flu and survived the collapse because they're superior people and free from sin and what can you say to that? It isn’t logical you can’t argue with it.'(p115)
'Her hand drifted up to the scar on her cheek bone. If there were better universes, than they were probably much worse ones. Universes where she remembered her first year on the road for instance, or where she remembered the scar on her face, or where'd she lost more than two teeth.' (p202)
'I understood the question I’d prefer not to answer.' (p132)
' "Because of my collection, the clippings, I understand something about permanent records.”
“And it isn’t something you want to be remembered for.”
“Exactly,” she said. ' (p268)
'He knew she couldn’t stand to gut fish - something she'd seen on the road that first year out of Toronto, a fleeting impression of some vision that she couldn’t exactly remember but that it made her ill when she tried to consider it.' (p142)
'.. music had always unmoored her' (p308)
'She’d pressed her forehead to the window and saw clusters and pinpoints of light in the darkness, scattered constellations linked by roads or alone. The beauty of it, the loneliness, the thought of all those people living out their lives, each porch light marking another house, another family.' (p135)
CLARKE
‘It’s the haircut I had from ages 17 through to 19.’ (p249)
‘Clark walked the length of the airport, restless, and was stunned to see that the security checkpoints were unmanned. He walked through and back three or four times, just because he could. He’d thought it would be liberating but all he felt was fear.’ (p238)
'Everyone waiting for whatever came next.' (p 241)
“That’s what passes for a life, I should say. That’s what passes for happiness, for most people. Guys like Dan, they’re like sleepwalkers,” she said, “and nothing ever jolts them awake.” (p164)
'High-functioning sleepwalkers, essentially.' (p163)
Page 223: A sliding door moment for Clarke.
'This orangeless world!' (p243)
'But sometimes the small circle of people and firelight seemed only to accentuate the emptiness of the continent, the loneliness of it, a candle flickering in vast darkness.' (p34)
ELIZABETH
'Everything happens for a reason'. (p261)
'We want to live a more spiritual life....my son and I.' (p261)
' “A new world requires new gods,” they said. They said, “We are guided by visions.” ' (p261)