Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I am better off doing as abnegation taught me: turning away from myself, projecting always outward, and hoping that in whatever is next, I will be better than I am now.
You're afraid of heights,'I say. 'How do you survive in the Dauntless compound?' 'I ignore my fear,' he (Four) says. 'When I make decisions, I pretend it doesn't exist.
I have to admit that Christina is good—though I don’t like giving credit to Candor smart-mouths—and so is Peter—though I don’t like giving credit to future psychopaths.
Today you will choose your factions. Until this point you have followed your parents’ paths, your parents’ rules. Today you will find your own path, make your own rules.
I shift from one foot to the other, trying to get a good look at him. When I finally do, I look away. His eyes were already on me, probably drawn by my nervous movement.
It's what you deserve to hear," I say firmly, my eyes going cloudy with tears. "That you're whole, that you're worth loving, that you're the best person I've ever known.
I kiss him as the train slides into unlit, uncertain land. I kiss him for as long as I want, for longer than I should, given that my brother sits three feet away from me.
Maybe it's a little depressing to think that my vision of a perfect world is actually so messed up, but I think it means that I don't really understand what 'perfect' is.
It’s not a perfect situation. But when you have to choose between two bad options, you pick the one that saves the people you love and believe in most. You just do. Okay?
I never used to understand why people bothered to hold hands as they walked, but then he runs one of his fingertips down my palm, and I shiver and understand it completely
That quality frightens me now, because I know what he told me: that I was broken, that I was worthless, that I was nothing. How many of those things did he make me believe?
Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We can’t escape that damage. But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other.
Our eyes meet. I hear a train horn, so faint it could be wind whistling through an alleyway. But I know it when I hear it. It sounds like the Dauntless, calling me to to them.
Oh, are we at the insult part of the breakup?" she says. "Because I got in a lot of practice after what happened with Will. I have several choice things to say about her nose.
My parents did love each other. Enough to forsake plans and factions. Enough to defy “faction before blood.” Blood before faction--no, love before faction, always. - Tris Prior
I don't see any elderly people in the crowd. Are there any old Dauntless? Do they not last that long, or are they just sent away when they can't jump off moving trains anymore?
I feel like what I have become is halfway between my mother and my father, violent and impulsive and desperate and afraid. I feel like I have lost control of what I have become.
Even though I am still injured, I had to fight again today.Luckily this time,I was paired against Myra,who couldn't throw a good punch if someone was controlling her arm for her.
It is amazing how pretending to be in a different faction changes everything -- even the way I walk. That must be why it's so strange that I could easily belong in three of them.
They try to make you think they care about what you do but they don't. They don't want you to act a certain way. So you're easy to understand. So you won't pose a threat to them.
I laugh, mirthless, a mad laugh. I savor the scowl on her face, the hate in her eyes. She was like a machine; she was cold and emotionless, bound by logic alone. And I broke her.
A breeze blows through the alley, pushing me to one side, and I think of scaling the Ferris wheel with Tobias. He kept me steady then. There is no one left to keep me steady now.
I was born for Abegnation. I was planning on leaving Dauntless, and becoming factionless. But then I met 'her', and...I felt like maybe I could make something more of my decision.
I used to go outside every day and invent these elaborate worlds and scenarios in my head, and when I grew too old for playing pretend, I started to write everything down instead.
I should probably be afraid. But instead a hysterical laugh bubbles inside me, because I just remembered something: Maybe I can’t hold a gun. But I have a knife in my back pocket.
I laugh shakily. ‘You’re a little scary, Four.’ ‘Do me a favor,’ he says, ‘and don’t call me that.’ ‘What should I call you, then?’ ‘Nothing.’ He takes his hand from my face. ‘Yet.
By the time we leave, I have red lips and curled eyelashes, and I’m wearing a bright red dress. And there’s a knife strapped to the inside of my knee. This all makes perfect sense.
There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved for the sake of something greater.
The Amity Established this place as a safe house. No conflict allowed." "The Amity will have trouble enforcing that policy," says Marcus. "How do you stop conflict without conflict?
No one's perfect," I whisper. "It doesn't work that way. One bad thing goes away, and another bad thing replaces it." I traded cowardice for cruelty; I traded weakness for ferocity.
I'm surprised you know that," I say quietly, " since you left halfway through my one and only fight." "It wasn't something I wanted to watch." he says. What's that supposed to mean?
I close my eyes. I don't expect Four to reassure me, and he makes no effort to, but I feel better standing here than I did out there among the people who are my friends, my faction.
Lynn smacks Uriah hard in the back of the head, Christina says, “Hey Tris!” and Uriah cries, “Ow! How on earth do you make a pillow hurt, Lynn?” “My exceptional strength,” she says.
His eyes search the crowd until they find my face. My heartbeat lives in my throat; lives in my cheeks. "I still don't understand," he says softly, "how she knew that it would work.
The theory is that if you spill all your secrets, you'll have no desire to lie about anything, ever again. Like the worst about you is already in the open, so why not just be honest?
He pulls me over the railing and against his chest, gathering me into his arms, easing an arm under my knees. I press my face into his shoulder, and there is a sudden, hollow silence.
In that moment I know exactly what I want; I want to peel away all the layers of clothing between us, strip away everything that separates us, the past and the present and the future.
He smiles in my memory. A curled lip. Straight teeth. Light in his eyes. Laughing, teasing, more alive in memory than I m in reality. It was him or me. I chose me. But I feel dead too.
I have a theory that selflessness and bravery aren't all that different. All your life you've been training to forget yourself, so when you're in danger, it becomes your first instinct
You think giving you a hug would give away too much?" he says. "You know," I say. "I really don't care." I stand on my tiptoes and press my lips to his. It is the best moment of my life.
I slowly realized that perfectionism just not that important. What's more important is to try to love the people around you. Whatever that means at a particular time is the best you can do.
To me, when someone wrongs you, you both share the burden of that wrongdoing—the pain of it weighs on both of you. Forgiveness, then, means choosing to bear the full weight all by yourself.
Why are you constantly escorting me places?” I say. “Isn’t there a depraved activity you’re supposed to be taking part in? Kicking puppies or spying on girls while they change, or something?
He told me once to be brave, and though I have stood still while knives spun toward my face and jumped off a roof, I never thought I would need bravery in the small moments of my life. I do.
We can't be confined to one way of thinking, and that terrifies our leaders. It means we can't be controlled. And it means that no matter what they do, we will always cause trouble for them.
About when to let others sacrifice themselves for you, even if its selfish. They say that if the sacrifice is the ultimate way for that person to show you that they love you, let them do it.
There is a difference between admitting and confessing. Admitting involves softening, making excuses for things that cannot be excused; confessing just names the crimes at its full severity.
I keep finding myself stifled by the company of others and then crippled by loneliness when I leave them. I am terrified and I don't even know of what, because I have lost everything already.
I know some things--I know that I'm not alone, that I have friends, that I'm in love. I know that I don't want to die, and for me that's something--more than I could have said a few weeks ago.
I love Tris the Divergent, who makes decisions apart from faction loyalty, who isn’t some faction archetype. But the Tris who’s trying as hard as she can to destroy herself … I can’t love her.