Man of Steel: The Official Movie Novelization

“Growing up here, with you and dad, that’s home. Not Krypton.” He looked up at the sky he had fallen from so long ago, and wondered if somewhere, countless light-years away, a swollen red sun still burned. “Jor-El died so I’d have a choice. But Dad taught me how to actually make one.”

He lifted his eyes and gazed out over the town and farmlands below. Smallville had already started rebuilding. There was a lot of work of work to do, and fresh crops to be planted in the spring, but he had faith in the town and its people. Pete Ross and the others weren’t going to let a little thing like an alien invasion keep them down for long. Smallville was stronger than that.
And so was Clark.

“I’m sorry you had to make a choice like that, between us and your own people.” She squeezed his hand. “It must have been hard.”
“I don’t remember that other world,” he assured her. “It’s just as alien to me as it would be to you.”

“I just wish he could’ve been here to see it finally happen,” Clark said.
“You weren’t ready before now,” she told him. “The world wasn’t. But he had faith you’d know when it was.”

“I grew up in Kansas, General. For an alien, I’m about as American as you can get. But Superman has to be more than that. Do you understand?”

“On Krypton, I committed unspeakable acts of violence,” he said. “I waged war. I tortured people. I performed countless executions. But there was never any malice behind my actions,” he insisted. “I did them because my people asked me to. But now I have no people. And for the first time in my life, I find myself contemplating violence simply because I want to.”

“Krypton had its chance,” Superman replied, and he gestured toward the humans. “This is their world. And we have no right to take it from them.”

She felt like killing something, preferably with her bare hands.

“You’re perverting the dream,” it said. “Our people can coexist with them.”
“Why should we?” Zod countered. “So we can suffer through years of pain, trying to adapt like your son has?” He scoffed at so dismal a future. “That’s not existing. I want to breathe the air of Krypton again. I want to feel the solid weight of our world beneath my feet.”

“Lightning-1 is Winchester!” the lead fighter pilot reported. A former army brat, Lois knew that “Winchester” was military slang for out of ammo. “Our guns are ineffective.”