“Jack considered: there were worse things that could happen than him dying. Of course, there were much better things, too.”

“There are worse things than a lie and there are better things than the truth!”

“Guilt and no guilt: these were the worst things. The only thing worse than the guilt was the fear of getting caught.”

“Some things were better lost than found.”

“There were few things worse than being ordinary, in Evie’s opinion. Ordinary was for suckers.”

“I now know that if you describe things as better as they are, you are considered to be romantic; if you describe things as worse than they are, you are called a realist; and if you describe things exactly as they are, you are called a satirist.”

“People who had, in the past, suffered from technophobia suffered even more. Others took other positions. Things were not so bad. Things could be worse. Worse things could be imagined. Worse things had been endured and triumphed over, in the past. This was not the worst. The worst was yet to come.”

“I would not say that they were happy. They knew what was going to happen to them. Of course, they were told what was going to happen to them, and they were resigned to their fate, and that is the strange thing about these people in the East.”

“Well,” Naomi said cheerfully, “what’s the worst that can happen?” They were silent, considering that, because there were just so many possibilities. But in the end, it was a better idea than Facebook.”

“Am I miffed now? No! It's the best thing that could have happened. We were saved! We were saved!”