1. “I feel like myself, strong and weak at once – allowed, at least for a little while, to be both.”
2. “Knowledge is power. Power to do evil…or power to do good. Power itself is not evil. So knowledge itself is not evil.”
3. “Pride blinds people to the truth of what they are.”
4. “Sometimes I still forget to look for the gentler parts of her. For so long all I saw was the strength, standing out like the wiry muscles in her arms or the black ink marking her collarbone with flight.”
5. “But that wasn´t the first time I ever saw her. I saw her in the hallways at school, and at my mother’s false funeral, and walking the sidewalks in the Abnegation sector. I saw her, but I didn’t see her; no one saw her the way she truly was until she jumped.
6. “I feel the urge, familiar now, to wrench myself from my body and speak directly into her mind. It is the same urge, I realize, that makes me want to kiss her every time I see her, because even a sliver of distance between us is infuriating. Our fingers, loosely woven a moment ago, now clutch together, her palm tacky with moisture, mine rough in places where I have grabbed too many handles on too many moving trains. Now she looks pale and small, but her eyes make me think of wide-open skies that I have never actually seen, only dreamed of.”
7. “Our ability to know about ourselves and the world is what makes us human”
8. “I belong to the people I love, and they belong to me–they, and the love and loyaty I give them, form my identity far more than any word or group ever could.”
9. “Can I be forgiven for all I’ve done to get here?
I want to be.
I can.
I believe it.”
10. “We are not people who touch each other carelessly; every point of contact between us feels important, a rush of energy and relief.”
11. “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”
12. “For me, it feels like driving from truth into a lie, from adulthood to childhoold. I watch the land of pavement and glass and metal turn into an empty field. The snow is falling softly now, and I can faintly see the city’s skyline up ahead, the buildings just a shade darker than the clouds.”
13. “It’s strange how time can make a place shrink, make its strangeness ordinary.”
14. “The person you became with her is worth being.”
15. “I understand why she did it this way, face-first–it was because it made her feel like she was flying, like she was a bird.”
16. “I know that change is difficult, and comes slowly, and that it is the work of many days strung together in a long line until the origin of them is forgotten.”
17. “She taught me all about real sacrifice. That it should be done from love… That it should be done from necessity, not without exhausting all other options. That it should be done for people who need your strength because they don’t have enough of their own.”
18. “I’m going to stop a revolution,” I say. I turn right, and Peter follows me.”
19. “Yeah, sometimes life really sucks,” she says. “But you know what I’m holding on for?”
I raise my eyebrows.
She raises hers, too, mimicking me.
“The moments that don’t suck,” she says. “The trick is to notice them when they come around.”
20. “It seems like the rebellions never stop, in the city, in the compound, anywhere. There are just breaths between them, and foolishly, we call those breaths “peace”.”
21. “All I can do is stand still- I feel like if I just stand still, I can stop it from being true, I can pretend that everything is all right.”
22. “She believes that Tobias belongs to her now. She doesn’t know the truth, that he belongs to himself.”
23. “He is strong, and lithe, and certain.
And he is mine.”
24. “I’m sick of doing bad things and liking it and then wondering what’s wrong with me. I want it to be over. I want to start again.”
25. “In the days that follow, it’s movement, not stillness, that helps to keep the grief at bay.”
26. “It happened. It was awful. You aren’t perfect. That’s all there is. Don’t confuse your grief with guilt.”
27. “I fell in love with him. But I don’t just stay with him by default as if there’s no one else available to me. I stay with him because I choose to, every day that I wake up, every day that we fight or lie to each other or disappoint each other. I choose him over and over again, and he chooses me.”
28. “There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved, for the sake of something greater.
But sometimes it doesn’t.
Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain, and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life.
That is the sort of bravery I must have now.”
29. “Sometimes I feel like there is so much to be afraid of, and sometimes I feel like there is nothing left to fear.”
30. “I didn’t know that idiocy caused people to just start spontaneously bleeding from the nose.”
31. “Some people will always fear change. But we can’t indulge them.”
32. “There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved for the sake of something greater.”
33. “Desperation can make a person do surprising things.”
34. “If we stay together, I’ll have to forgive you over and over again, and if you’re still in this, you’ll have to forgive me over and over again too. So forgiveness isn’t the point. What I really should have been trying to figure out is whether we were still good for each other or not”
35. “It is impossible to erase my choices.”
36. “I feel a thread tugging me again, but this time I know that it isn’t some sinister force dragging me toward death.
This time I know it’s my mother’s hand, drawing me into her arms.
And I go gladly into her embrace.”
37. “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.”
38. “But I think that no matter how smart, people usually see what they’re already looking for, that’s all.”
39. “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.”
40. “It’s stupid to miss a thing when there are so many people to miss instead, but I miss this train already, and all the others that carried me through the city, my city, after I was brave enough to ride them. I brush my fingers over the car wall, just once, and then jump.”
41. “It’s then that I realize: Of course Tris would go into the Weapons Lab instead of Caleb.
Of course she would.”
42. “Or maybe we’ll make a home somewhere inside ourselves, to carry with us wherever we go- which is the way I carry my mother now.”
43. “But when I do feel all the strength go out of me, and I fall to my knees beside the table and I think I cry, then, or at least I want to, and everything inside me screams for just one more kiss, one more word, one more glance, one more.”
44. “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.”
45. “But now, I am also learning this: WE can be mended. We mend each other.”
46. “I just wanted to thank you’ he says, his voice low.
‘A group of scientists told you that my genes were damaged, that there was something wrong with me – they showed you the test results that proved it. And even I started to believe it.’
He touches my face, his thumb skimming my cheekbone, and his eyes are on mine, intense and insistent.
‘You never believed it,’ he says ‘Not for a second. You always insisted I was… I don’t know, whole.”
47. “Be brave”
48. “If I don’t survive,” I say, “tell Tobias I didn’t want to leave him.”
49. “I wonder if fears ever really go away, or if they just lose their power over us.”
50. “It’s not often real that you encounter the real person behind a good-natured mask, the darkest part of someone. It’s not comfortable what you do.”
51. “Morning,” I say.
“Shh,” she says. “If you don’t acknowledge it, maybe it will go away.”
52. “It’s strange how a word, a phrase, a sentence, can feel like a blow to the head.”
53. “I laugh, and it’s laughter, not light, that casts out the darkness building within me, that reminds me I am still alive, even in this strange place where everything I’ve ever known is coming apart.”
54. “Some things are hard to let go of.”
55. “Life damages us, every one. We can’t escape that damage.”
56. “The first step to loving someone else is to recognize the evil in ourselves, so we can forgive them.”
57. “How have I never realized before that for all the strong, kind parts of him, there are also hurting, broken parts?”
58. “Take a person’s memories, and you change who they are.”
59. “You’re not very nice,“ I say, grinning.
“You’re one to talk.”
“Hey, I could be nice if I tried.”
“Hmm.” He taps his chin. “Say something nice, then.”
“You’re very good-looking.”
He smiles, his teeth a flash in this dark. “I like this ‘nice’ thing.”
60. “I think you’re still the only person sharp enough to sharpen someone like me.”
61. “Yes,” she says, her eyes bright with tears. “My dear child, you’ve done so well.”
62. “Being honest doesn’t mean you say whatever you want, wherever you want. It means that what you choose to say is true.”
63. “I have never had parents who set good examples, parents whose expectations were worth living up to, but she did. I can see them within her, the courage and the beauty they pressed into her like a handprint.”
64. “She said that everyone has some evil inside them, and the first step to loving anyone is to recognize the same evil inside ourselves,so we’re able to forgive them.”
65. “I don’t know how long it takes for me to realize that isn’t going to happen,
that she is gone. But when I do I feel all the strength go out of me, and I fall to my knees beside the table and I think I cry, then, or at least I want to, and everything inside me screams for just one more kiss, one more word, one more glance, one more.”
66. “You don’t believe things because they make your life better, you believe them because they’re true.”
67. “I glance at Tris. She grins at me, then leans in to whisper something to Christina.
“Are you here to help or what, Stiff?” I say.”
68. “I understand why she did all those things, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t still broken.”
69. “Because even a sliver of distance between us is infuriating.”
70. “I choose him over and over again, and he chooses me.”
71. “If they told us what to believe, and we didn’t come to it on our own, is it still true?”
72. “I’ll say it one last time: Be brave.”
73. “she sighs, then breaks a piece off the muffin in my hand. ‘Hey. There are plenty more just five feet to your right.’
‘then you shouldn’t be so concerned about losing some of yours.’ she says, grinning.
‘Fair enough.”
74. “If someone offer you an opportunity to get closer to your enemy, you always take it.”
75. “And I provide much- needed eye candy.”
76. “I suppose a fire that burns that bright is not meant to last.”
77. “You’re not very nice,“ I say, grinning.
“You’re one to talk.”
“Hey, I could be nice if I tried.”
“Hmm.” He taps his chin. “Say something nice, then.”
“You’re very good-looking.”
78. “Pride is what killed Al, and it is the flaw in every Dauntless heart. It is in mine.”
79. “If you see someone in trouble, you should help them. Experiment or not.”
81. “People are supossed to aspire to become their fathers, not shudder at the thought.”
82. “Change, like healing, takes time.”
83. “He smiles, his teeth a flash in this dark. “I like this ‘nice’ thing.”
