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Family doesn't have to look like you; they can have feathers and scales and scutes. What matters is that you're loved for who you are in your heart. We survive when we are seen. -Feral Creatures, Kira Jane Buxton, p. 347

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We would be together. And it would be okay. The truth is that we are all just little owlets imprinting on one another. When you love someone with your soul, they never really leave you; they are hemmed into your heart. -Feral Creatures, Kira Jane Buxton, p. 329

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I was experiencing acute déjà poo- the feeling that I'd heard this crap before. -Feral Creatures, Kira Jane Buxton, p. 254

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If you're not careful, history is a perennial plant. Tenacious roots hide themselves so that things can once again burgeon in bright colors. -Feral Creatures, Kira Jane Buxton, p. 246

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Peeling letters peeked through- 'Peace on earth'- and hectic red graffiti over the top of it: 'GUNS AND AMMO SEE ERIC IN WOODINVILLE IF YOUR SICK WELL SHOOT.' And smaller green scrawl: 'ur guns won't help u now.' I know what you're thinking, and you're right: this was empirical evidence that the very first casualty of the apocalypse had been grammar. -Feral Creatures, Kira Jane Buxton, p. 208-09

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Death can be soft or sharp, a moment's kiss or a hero's odyssey. It can be quiet or colorful, violent as talons on soft-bellied fish or as stealthy as a long-leaved butterwort using its delicious stickiness to trap a gullible fly. -Feral Creatures, Kira Jane Buxton, p. 178

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Big brain and big heart had fought. Heart had won, but it didn't mean it hadn't been broken in the battle. -Feral Creatures, Kira Jane Buxton, p. 161

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...if you know cats, you know they cannot be bargained with. Cats obey no one. Where prey is concerned, they are puppets, strung into violence by invisible masters. -Feral Creatures, Kira Jane Buxton, p. 132

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And if there's one thing I'd learned right then and there about the truth, it's that you can bury it as deeply and assiduously as possible. You can even do it with a heart filled with flame. But one day, that truth will germinate and grow and writhe its winding way up through black soil, driven by a ravenous yearning for the light. It will come back glowing green. It will sprout pertinacious shoots, clambering toward consciousness. Rising with all the power of the sun. -Feral Creatures, Kira Jane Buxton, p. 62

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In case you are wondering what a human in, they were essentially bald apes that covered their genitals with cloth and experienced incessant outrage. Holy Funyuns, everything set them off- noises, the weather, the interminable celestial mystery of what happened to their socks, but mostly other humans. They were inordinately clever. They invented magical things like pastries with holes in them and the ShamWow, and they got excited over whimsical happenings like a winged fairy who broke into their homes in the middle of the night to collect their offsprings' teeth in exchange for cash slipped under a pillow at varying rates of inflation. They had very, very big hearts and I loved them all. -Feral Creatures, Kira Jane Buxton, p. 2

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I start to hyperventilate. "We're dead in space. We're stuck here forever." 'Not forever,' Rocky says. I perk up. "No?" 'No. Orbit decay soon. Then we die.' -Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, p. 370

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The computer finishes its boot process and brings up a screen I've never seen before. I can tell it means trouble, because the word "TROUBLE" is in large type across the top. -Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, p.365

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"Our intelligence is based on the animals' intelligences. So what is animal intelligence based on? How smart do animals have to be?" 'Smart enough to identify threat or prey in time to act.' "Yes, exactly!" I say. "But how long is that time? How long does an animal have to react? How long will the threat or prey take to kill the animal or escape? I think it's based on gravity." 'Gravity, question?' He sets the device down entirely. I've got his undivided attention. "Yeah! Think about it. Gravity is what determines how fast an animal can run. Higher gravity, more time spent in contact with the ground. Faster movement. I think animal intelligence, ultimately, has to be faster than gravity." 'Interesting theory,' Rocky says. 'But Erid have double Earth gravity. You and I same intelligence.' I sit up on my bed. "I bet our gravities are so close to the same, astronomically, that the intelligence needed is almost the same. If we met a creature from a planet with one one-hundreth of Earth's gravity, I bet it would seem pretty stupid to us." -Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, p. 350

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It's a simple idea, but also stupid. Thing is, when stupid ideas work, they become genius ideas. -Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, p. 299

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I'm not rested at all. Every pore of my being yells at me to go back to sleep, but I told Rocky I'd be back in two hours and I wouldn't want him to think humans are untrustworthy. I mean... we're pretty untrustworthy, but I don't want him to know that. -Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, p. 185

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Your move, guys. ************************* Their move is taking a long time and I'm getting bored. Wow. I'm sitting here in a spaceship in the Tau Ceti system waiting for the intelligent aliens I just met to continue our conversation... and I'm bored. Humans beings have a remarkable ability to accept the abnormal and make it normal.

-Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, p. 157

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"Astrophage is an alien microbe. What if it can infect humans? What if it's deadly? What if hazmat suits and neoprene gloves aren't enough protection?" I gasped. "Wait a minute! Am I a guinea pig? I'm a guinea pig!" "No, it's not like that," she said. I stared at her. She stared at me. I stared at her. "Okay, it's exactly like that," she said. -Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir, p. 58