1) "[Chief Joseph] 'I have tried to save you from suffering and sorrow. We are few. They are many. You can see all we have at a glance. They have goods and ammunition in abundance. We must suffer great hardship and loss. 'I will go now to the place known to our ancestors, seldom visited, the place of smoke by the great falls and twin mountains, to seek the aid of the Great Spirit Chief in this time of need.' [The Archivist] 'This sounds like a reference to one of their principal myths, common to many nations in the Northwest region, that refer to ancient relationships with mysterious beings they refer to as 'Sky People.''"

2) "PRESIDENT NIXON: We're going to get to the bottom of this thing. You'll answer to me, once the shit hits the fan on Blue Book, and no one else. We're going to pull something together, below the radar, a private task force, interagency, to keep this going. ME [Douglas Milford]: What can I do? PRESIDENT NIXON: Lay low. Draw up a roster, who you might use, cherry pick from any branch of service or agency, and a plan on how you'd most effectively proceed--though whatever you do, keep the CIA out of it. They play their own game by their own rules no matter who's at this desk. Be ready when I call on you. I need to flex some muscle first, carve out some operating room--this is a power game; I know how the system works but it takes time--and then we're going to find out exactly what these Skull and Bones 'Wise Men' have stashed up their sleeves."

3) "[Dr. Jacoby] Leland spoke of 'possession.' Laura wrote in her diary about an entity she called 'BOB,' all caps. A malevolent being she claimed to 'see'—in her father's stead—whenever he assaulted her. Leland had no memory of his dreadful acts till the very end. A masking memory, for both of them, our 'professional training' would instruct me to label it, a way for their minds to protect themselves from the unendurable truth. Or, in other words, whistling through the graveyard. A medicine man in the Amazon would take them both at their word, believe the story at face value and treat it accordingly. Possession. An entity. Why is that any less plausible or relevant than the safe, sanitized, pre-packaged bullshit of an armchair diagnosis made solely from the neck up? What is that but a shield hoisted to protect us from the unholy terror of glimpsing ourselves as we truly are: creatures of unknown origin, trapped in time, pinned to a hostile rock whirling through indifferent and infinite space, clueless, inherently violent and condemned to death?"

4) "[Douglas Milford] These final truths you must never forget: we are utterly incapable of knowing their true intent, and their true intent may not be to wish us well. It may be that they're here to guide or even aid our evolution; it's equally possibly we may matter no more to them then those random protozoa in our tap water do to us. In other words, by our meager moral definitions, they may be both 'good' and 'evil,' and those precious distinctions of ours mean nothing to them. There may even be a 'good' and 'evil' side at play here, and we, our human race, is the game! Let me hasten to add I hope I'm wrong, that this work--being 'chosen'--has deranged me, but Garland, I fear that I am right and in my right mind. The owls may indeed not be what they seem but still serve an imperative function: they remind us to look into the darkness. Whatever steps you take from here, do not act alone: wait for your next control to appear."