But who names a starship the Icarus? What kind of man possess that much hubris, that he dares it to fall?

— Amie Kaufman

Clear skies, cousin". Good luck, he means. There are never clear skies on Avon, no blue, no stars. But we don't give up hope, and we use those words to remind ourselves. Clear skies will come, one day.

— Amie Kaufman

Forget everything else. Forget everyone else. You're exactly my kind of girl.

— Amie Kaufman

He can’t take his eyes off the stars, but I can’t take mine off his face.

— Amie Kaufman

He can’t take his eyes off the stars, but I can’t take mine off his face. I can see the stars reflected in his eyes, can see the wonder of it in the way his mouth opens, but no sound comes out. His eyes, his face—they’re beautiful.

— Amie Kaufman

He’s as tense as I am, maybe even more so, but it’s so hard to reconcile that with the serenity of weightlessness. His faux-blond hair is floating out away from his head. He’s wearing a worn, much-mended, and too-large shirt his friend in town must’ve found for him to help him blend in. He looks nothing like the Romeo who dragged me off the base, nothing like the Cormac who threw himself between his own people and me. It’s like that guy’s gone, and I killed him.

— Amie Kaufman

His eyes move to my lips, and I know he’s thinking the same thing; I can feel it in the way the air charges between us. I can almost taste him half an inch away, can feel the way the tiny hairs on my skin lift and reach for him like plants seeking the sunlight.

— Amie Kaufman

I listen to his heartbeat. Hear him breathe. As though becomes motion and motion becomes all that lies between him and his end. As the black Is burning blue with the light of tiny funeral pyres. As his missiles and bullets take away his enemy. All they were and will ever be. I can taste it in his whispers. See it in the tiny photograph he has taped to his console. All he thinks of amid this loveless dance. All he cares about here on the edge of forever, is her. He does not want to die. Not because he is afraid. Simply because he cannot bear the thought of leaving her behind. And there, in that tiny moment, I envy him.

— Amie Kaufman

I'm leaning against the bookshelves when it occurs to me that one thing here is real-the books. I reach behind me and let my fingers trail over the rough leather of their antique spines, then pull one free. Nobody here reads them; the books are for decoration. Chosen for the richness of their leather bindings not for the contents of their pages. Nobody will miss one, and I need a dose of reality.

— Amie Kaufman

I never knew it was possible to be so miserable in so many ways.

— Amie Kaufman