“Then, you talked to me about circles. Circles! Do you know what the Traveler's reawakening meant for the geometry of circles? You told me it changed everything about the semiotic role of circles in some paracausal invocation of the Light. And I'm going to tell you the truth, which is, you didn't want to talk to me, so you talked about circles instead. I know people who can talk in circles, but you're the only one who can do it by talking about circles. I really admire your efficiency.”
-Chalco Yong to Ikora Rey
“’A sword can be part of a bomb if the swordstrike is the detonation mechanism,’ Mara says. ‘It's impossible for a cellular automata game to change its own rules, but it is possible to create subgames with their own rules, and for those subgames to yield advantage in the master game.’
‘That's cool,’ Sjur says. ‘You know, when you talk like that, what you're actually saying is, “I don't want anyone to understand me, but I want them to understand they don't understand me.”
‘Yeah,’ Mara admits, and then, hoarsely, she makes herself say, ‘Sjur, I have this secret, this thing I did, and I don't know if anyone can know it without hating me forever.’”
-Sjur Eido and Mara Sov