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Peris
David’s dad and Maddy’s husband. Az and David look a lot alike, something that shocks Tally at first, since pretty surgery tends to eliminate physical quirks that get passed down among family members. Az and his wife, Maddy, founded the Smoke and had David after they fled the city. Prior to that, Az was a cosmetic surgeon who researched how to make the pretty operation safer. He was the first to discover the brain lesions that most pretties have after surgery and, with Maddy’s help, uncovered that the lesions change the way pretties think—but also that Special Circumstances has the ability to cure the lesions, since no Specials or doctors have them. Az believes that it’s extremely important for people to be able to make their own choices about who they want to be and how they grow up, which is why he and Maddy allow young people who grow disillusioned with life in the Smoke to leave without a fight. Near the end of the novel, Az dies from a forced medical experiment while in custody at Special Circumstances.
Az Quotes in Uglies
The Uglies quotes below are all either spoken by Az or refer to Az. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Pretty Minds
Quotes
Tally remembered crossing the river to New Pretty Town, watching them have their endless fun. She and Peris used to boast they’d never wind up so idiotic, so shallow. But when she’d seen him... “Becoming pretty doesn’t just change the way you look,” she said.
“No,” David said. “It changes the way you think.”
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Burning Bridges
Quotes
For that matter, shallow and self-centered was how brand-new pretties were supposed to be. As an ugly, Peris had made fun of them—but he hadn’t waited a moment to join in the fun. No one ever did. So how could you tell how much was the operation and how much was just people going along with the way things had always been?
Only by making a whole new world, which is just what Maddy and Az had begun to do.
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Hippocratic Oath
Quotes
“Why did we even have to ask? They didn’t get her permission when they did this to her!”
“That’s the difference between us and them,” Maddy said. “After Az and I found out what the operation really meant, we realized we’d been party to something horrible. People had their minds changed without their knowledge. As doctors, we took an ancient oath never to do anything like that.”
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Az Quotes in Uglies
The Uglies quotes below are all either spoken by Az or refer to Az. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Pretty Minds
Quotes
Tally remembered crossing the river to New Pretty Town, watching them have their endless fun. She and Peris used to boast they’d never wind up so idiotic, so shallow. But when she’d seen him... “Becoming pretty doesn’t just change the way you look,” she said.
“No,” David said. “It changes the way you think.”
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Burning Bridges
Quotes
For that matter, shallow and self-centered was how brand-new pretties were supposed to be. As an ugly, Peris had made fun of them—but he hadn’t waited a moment to join in the fun. No one ever did. So how could you tell how much was the operation and how much was just people going along with the way things had always been?
Only by making a whole new world, which is just what Maddy and Az had begun to do.
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Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Hippocratic Oath
Quotes
“Why did we even have to ask? They didn’t get her permission when they did this to her!”
“That’s the difference between us and them,” Maddy said. “After Az and I found out what the operation really meant, we realized we’d been party to something horrible. People had their minds changed without their knowledge. As doctors, we took an ancient oath never to do anything like that.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
