Do you believe in God, Evan?”“Sure I do.”“I don’t. I mean, I don’t know. I did before the Others came. Or thought I did, when I thought about it at all. And then they came and…” I have to stop for a second to collect myself. “Maybe there’s a God. Sammy thinks there is. But he also thinks there’s a Santa Claus. Still, every night I said his prayer with him, and it didn’t have anything to do with me. It was about Sammy and what he believed, and if you could have seen him take that fake soldier’s hand and follow him onto that bus…” I’m losing it, and it doesn’t matter to me much. Crying is always easier in the dark. Suddenly my cold hand is blanketed by Evan’s warmer one, and his palm is as soft and smooth as the pillowcase beneath my cheek.“It kills me,” I sob. “The way he trusted. Like the way we trusted before they came and blew the whole goddamned world apart. Trusted that when it got dark there would be light. Trusted that when you wanted a fucking strawberry Frappuccino you could plop your ass in the car, drive down the street, and get yourself a fucking strawberry Frappuccino! Trusted…

— Rick Yancey

Do you know a way out of here?” I ask Ben. Sammy’s more trusting than I am, but the idea’s worth exploring. Finding the escape pods—if they even exist—has always been the weakest part of my getaway plan. He nods. “Do you?”“I know a way—I just don’t know the way to the way.”“The way to the way? Okay.” He grins. He looks like hell, but the smile hasn’t changed a bit. It lights up the tunnel like a thousand-watt bulb. “I know the way and the way to the way.

— Rick Yancey

Even the most sensitive person can get used to even the most insensitive things.

— Rick Yancey

Everything's going to be okay', because that's what I wanted him to say, and it's what he wanted to say and that's what you do when the curtain is falling — you give the line that the audience wants to hear.

— Rick Yancey

For a being more advanced than I am, he sure has a hard time answering a simple question

— Rick Yancey

He barely knew I existed. I knew some of the same people he knew, but I was a girl in the background, several degrees of separation removed.

— Rick Yancey

He didn’t like to see animals in captivity. When he looked into their eyes, something in their eyes looked back at him.

— Rick Yancey

He lays me on the bed. I say, right before he kisses me again, “If you kiss me again, I’m going to knee you in the balls.” His hands are incredibly soft, like a cloud touching me.“I won’t let you just…” He searches for the right word. “…fly away from me, Cassie Sullivan.” He blows out the candle beside the bed. I feel his kiss more intensely now, in the darkness of the room where his sister died. In the quiet of the house where his family died. In the stillness of the world where the life we knew before the Arrival died. He tastes my tears before I can feel them. Where there would be tears, his kiss.“I didn’t save you,” he whispers, lips tickling my eyelashes. “You saved me.” He repeats it over and over, until we fall asleep pressed against each other, his voice in my ear, my tears in his mouth.“You saved me.

— Rick Yancey

He was a finisher who could not finish. He was the heart of a hunter who lacked the heart to kill. In her journal she had written I am humanity, and something in those three words split him in two. She was they may fly, here for a day, then gone. She was the last star, burning bright in a sea of limitless black. Erase the human. In a burst of blinding light, the star Cassiopeia exploded, and the world went black. Evan Walker had been undone.

— Rick Yancey

His body is pressed against my back, his arm is wrapped protectively around my waist, his breath a delicious tickle against my neck. The room is very cold; it would be nice to climb under the covers, but I don’t want to move. I don’t want him to move. I run my fingers along his bare forearm, remembering the warmth of his lips, the silkiness of his hair between my fingers. The boy who never sleeps, sleeping. Coming to rest upon the Cassiopeia shore, an island in the middle of a sea of blood. You have your promise, and I have you. I can’t trust him. I have to trust him. I can’t stay with him. Furthermore, I can’t leave him behind.

— Rick Yancey