″‘But Ember is not prospering!’ he cried. ‘Everything is getting worse and worse!’ [...] ‘The blackouts!’ cried Doon. ‘The lights go out all the time now! And the shortages, there’s shortages of everything! If no one does anything about it, something terrible is going to happen!‘”
“They stared at each other in the flickering light, realized what this meant. There was no tunnel leading out of Ember. The way out was the river. To leave Ember, they must go on the river.”
“The creature was utterly strange, not like anything they had ever known, and yet when it looked at them, some kind of recognition passed between them. ‘I know now,’ said Doon. ‘This is the world we belong in.‘”
″‘Doon!’ cried Lina. ‘More lights!’ She pointed at the sky. He looked up and saw them—hundreds and hundreds of tiny flecks of light, strewn like spilled salt across the blackness. ‘Oh!’ he whispered. There was nothing else to say. The beauty of these lights made his breath stop in his throat.”