Status Updates From Visitors (Pathfinder, #3)

"It's better to lose someone you love, thought Rigg, than to have no one to lose."

"'And then I'd have to figure out how to get myself to a complete stop.'
'Death,' suggested one of the helpful mice. 'Works every time.'
'From your expression,' said Ram, 'a mouse said something you didn't like.'
'It was very funny,' said Noxon. 'To anybody who didn't actually have to do this.'"

"'So their history is the same thing over and over,' said Rigg.
'All history is the same thing over and over,' said Ram Odin. 'The technology may change, but the behavior is still human. We are who we are. Individuals learn, grow up, get better, wiser, stronger, healthier, kinder - or the opposite. As a group, though, we keep inventing the same behaviors.'"

"'We know what self-control looks like in other peo p le,' said Umbo, 'and wish we had it for ourselves.'
'Oh, you have it,' said Vadeshex. 'It just doesn't kick in until you've already said and done things you can't unsay and can't undo.'"

"That moment - the end of the world - was one of those markers in the future that he remembered with all the certainty of the most important times he had lived through or visited in the past."

"Ironic that it was Leaky who remembered Kyokay's death, though she hardly knew Umbo, while Loaf, who had traveled with him for years, thought Umbo would go home for revenge. But maybe it wasn't about who knew Umbo better. Maybe it was just that Loaf was thinking of the kind of thing he himself might do - punish someone who had done wrong - while Leaky was better at remembering personal things."

"'I can't believe you had to go through all this trouble. Of course I want him back, however I can get him. If you dragged him back in a sack without arms or legs, I'd take him. What do you think marriage is, boy?'
'Judging by my parents, it's not like the two of you.'

"'Just what we need,' said Rigg. 'More Ram Odins.'
'I've shepherded nineteen wallfolds for eleven thousand years,' said Ram. 'What have you done?'
'You hurt his feelings,' said Noxon.
'He's too sensitive,' said Rigg."