Could You Repeat That? CLX

Too Like the Lightning, Ada Palmer
If you cannot imagine numbers have such power to move a man, imagine instead one of his historical counterparts: you are the tutor who has sensed something strange about this youth Caligula; you are the native who sees a second set of white sails on the horizon following the first; you are the hound who feels the tremors of the tsunami about to crash on Crete and erase the Minoan people, but you know no one will heed you, even if you bark.

Extreme Makeover, Dan Wells
"We are stopping a crippling overpopulation problem and ushering in a golden age," said France. "Immortal supermodel lesbians are a necessary side effect, and wow, that sounds horrible when I try to explain it like that."

Heat and Light, Jennifer Haigh
Men like Freddy Weems were what guns were for.

Night of the Animals, Bill Broun
That the jackals could still be mistaken for dogs was understandable, but the sight of a four-hundred-pound ape trailed by two Asian elephants was fairly distinctive outside the Sherlock Holmes Steak House.

Mister Monkey, Francine Prose
With his enormous dark eyes and long lashes, the child reminds the grandfather of his own father, who died when he was twelve; his father was thirty-six years younger than the grandfather is now. There is never a moment when the grandfather has to stop and calculate how long he has outlived his father; he always knows.

A Closed and Common Orbit, Becky Chambers
You weren't junk, she thought, fingers tracing bone, carving white lines through the dirt. You were good and brave and you tried.

The Idiot, Elif Batuman
Overwhelmed by happiness, the little girl began to sing. She was so happy--but she didn't know what anything really was. She didn't know what anything meant. She knew even less than we did.

Penric and the Shaman, Lois McMaster Bujold
For an instant the bed of broken boulders far below him invited him like a bed in truth, an offer of rest at the end of an impossibly long day. A branch brushed his arm, and his hand closed convulsively, unwilled.

City of Miracles, Robert Jackson Bennett
"The world is written upon your heart just as it is mine. Pick up all the weapons of all realities and use them all as best you can, Taty, but you cannot inflict virtue on the world. You cannot."

The Nameless City (graphic novel), Faith Erin Hicks
RAT: You killed my parents. Your soldiers killed them.
THE GENERAL: I am sorry for your pain. And I am sorry for my role in it. Is there anything I can do?
RAT: Leave.

The Legend of Lyon Redmond, Julie Anne Long
And he lay awake and suffered.

Throne of Jade, Naomi Novik, x2
Temeraire had curled up for the night upon the heated courtyard stones once again. The moon had risen, and he was very beautiful to look at in the silver light, with the blossom-heavy trees on either side hanging low above him and a dappled reflection in the pond, all his scales gleaming.

Walkaway, Cory Doctorow
She turned to go, because walking away solved the Jimmy problem every time.

Invincible Iron Man: Civil War II, Brian Michael Bendis
VICTOR: Isn't Mastermind dead?
TONY: This was a while ago.
VICTOR: Still, you have to admire the achievement.
TONY: You are a horror.
VICTOR: A lot more people hate you than hate me.