1. “I do think you’re mad and I’ll still go with you.”
2. “Not like this. He wanted it to be real.”
3. “If I feel ragged, my prep team seems in worse condition, knocking back coffee and sharing brightly colored little pills. As far as I can tell, they never get up before noon unless there’s some sort of national emergency, like my leg hair.”
4. “We had to save you because you’re the mockingjay, Katniss,” says Plutarch. “While you live, the revolution lives.”
5. “I stand there, feeling broken and small, thousands of eyes trained on me.”
6. “Fine. Somebody else can arrange to get the stupid goat knocked up.”
7. ″‘In several of [the districts], people viewed your little trick with the berries as an act of defiance, not an act of love. And if a girl from District Twelve of all places can defy the Capitol and walk away unharmed, what is to stop them from doing the same?’ he says. ‘What is to prevent, say, an uprising?‘”
8. “Mutually counting on each other, watching each other’s backs, forcing each other to be brave.”
9. “I’m filled with awe, as I always am, as I watch her transform from a woman who calls me to kill a spider to a woman immune to fear.”
10. “I look up into those blue eyes that no amount of dramatic makeup can make truly deadly and remember how, just a year ago, I was prepared to kill him. Convinced he was trying to kill me. Now everything is reversed. I’m determined to keep him alive, knowing the cost will be my own life, but the part of me that is not so brave as I could wish is glad that it’s Peeta, not Haymitch, beside me.”
11. “Instead of satisfying me, the kisses have the opposite effect, of make my need greater. I thought I was something of an expert on hunger, but this is an entirely new kind.”
12. “I owe it to the rebels who, emboldened by Cinna’s example, might be fighting to bring down the Capitol at this moment. My refusal to play the Games on the Capitol’s terms is to be my last act of rebellion. So I grit my teeth and will myself to be a player. ”
13. “Remember, girl on fire,” he says, “I’m still betting on you.”
14. “Great. Now I have to go back and tell Haymitch I want an eighty-year-old and Nuts and Volts for my allies. He’ll love that.”
15. “They erase my face with a layer of pale makeup and draw my features back out.”
16. “I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you.”
17. “Because I can’t handle the nightmares. Not without you.”
18. “Because I’m selfish. I’m a coward. I’m the kind of girl who, when she might actually be of use, would run to stay alive and leave those who couldn’t follow to suffer and die.”
19. “Look, if you wanted to be babied you should have asked Peeta.”
20. “In that one slight motion, I see the end of hope, beginning of destruction of everything I hold dear in the world. I can’t guess what form my punishment will take, how wide the net will be cast, but when it is finished there most likely be nothing left. So you would think that at this moment, I would be in utter despair.”
21. “If it’s true, why do they leave us to live like this? With the hunger and the killings and the Games?” And suddenly I hate this imaginary underground city of District 13 and those who sit by, watching us die. They’re no better than the Capitol.”
22. “Safe to do what?” he says in a gentler tone. “Starve? Work like slaves? Send their kids to the reaping? You haven’t hurt people — you’ve given them an opportunity.”
23. “All I can think of is the emaciated bodies of children on our kitchen table as my mother prescribes what the parent’s can’t give. More food.”
24. “I really can’t think about kissing when I’ve got a rebellion to incite. ”
25. “hey. I just wanted to make sure you got home,” I say. “Katniss, I live three houses away from you,” he says.”
26. “Over the course of the last five years, the lake’s remarkably unchanged and I’m almost unrecognizable.”
27. “Aim higher in case you fall short.”
28. “We each get fifteen minutes before the Gamemakers to amaze them with our skills, but I don’t know what any of us might have to show them. There’s a lot of kidding about it at lunch. What we might do. Sing, dance, strip, tell jokes. Mags, who i can understand a little better now, decides she’s just going to take a nap.”
29. “Your stylist turned out to be prophetic in his wardrobe choice. Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, you have provided a spark that, left unattended, may grow to an inferno that destroys Panem.”
30. “If it were up to me, I would try to forget the Hunger Games entirely. Never speak of them. Pretend they were nothing but a bad dream. But the Victory Tour makes that impossible.”
31. “Really, the combination of the scabs and the ointment looks hideous. I can’t help enjoying his distress.
“Poor Finnick. Is this the first time in your life you haven’t looked pretty?” I say.
“It must be. The sensation’s completely new. How have you managed it all these years?” he asks.
“Just avoid mirrors. You’ll forget about it,” I say.
“Not if I keep looking at you,” he says.”
32. “I thought I was something of an expert on hunger, but this is an entirely new kind.”
33. “Whatever it takes to break you.”
34. “I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you,” Peeta replies.”
35. “One way or the other, I have a very valuable piece of information. And if they know I have it, they might do something to alter the force field so I can’t see the aberration anymore. So I lie.”
36. “I forget the rest of the gym and the victors and how miserable I am and lose myself in the shooting. When I manage to take down five birds in one round, I realize it’s so quiet I can hear each one hit the floor. I turn and see the majority of the victors have stopped to watch me. Their faces show everything from envy to hatred to admiration.”
37. “Love is weird”
38. “The idea of being strong for someone else having never entered their heads, I find myself in the position of having to console them. Since I’m the person going in to be slaughtered, this is somewhat annoying.”
39. “It’s an awful lot to take in, this elaborate plan in which I was a piece, just as I was meant to be a piece in the Hunger Games. Used without consent, without knowledge. At least in the Hunger Games, I knew I was being played with.”
40. “Hey, Finnick, come on in! We figured out how to make you pretty again!”
41. “You know, you could live a thousand lifetimes and not deserve him.”
42. ″‘Like you said, it’s going to be bad no matter how you slice it. And whatever Peeta wants, it’s his turn to be saved. We both owe him that.’ My voice takes on a pleading tone. ‘Besides, the Capitol hates me so much, I’m as good as dead now. He still might have a chance.‘”
43. “Isn’t it strange that I know you’d risk your life to save mine, but I don’t even know what your favorite color is?”
44. “I turn and put my lips close to Peeta’s and drop my eyelids in imitation… “He offered me sugar and wanted to know all my secrets,” I say in my best seductive voice.”
45. “I look at Peeta and he gives me a sad smile. I hear Haymitch’s voice. “You could do a lot worse.” At this moment, it’s impossible to imagine how I could do any better. The gift…it is perfect. So when I rise up on my tiptoe to kiss him, it doesn’t seem forced at all.”
46. “You haven’t hurt people — you’ve given them an opportunity.”
47. “You know, I think this is the first time we’ve ever done anything normal together.”
48. “He tilts his forehead down to rest against mine and pulls me closer. His skin, his whole being radiates heat from being so near the fire, and I close my eyes, soaking in his warmth. I breathe in the smell of snow-dampened leather and smoke and apples, the smell of all those wintry days we shared before the Games. I don’t try to move away. Why should I anyway? His voice drops to a whisper. “I love you.” That’s why.”
49. “Desperate, yet no longer alone after that day, because we’d found each other.”
50. “The bird, the pin, the song, the berries, the watch, the cracker, the dress that burst into flames. I am the mockingjay. The one that survived despite the Capitol’s plans. The symbol of the rebellion.”
51. “He could have had his choice of any woman in the district. And he chose solitude. Not solitude – that sounds too peaceful. More like solitary confinement.”
52. “I do,” I say. “I need you.”
53. “It starts at midnight.”
54. “Well, you really made a mess of things,’ he says. ‘I’m not even done,’ I tell him.”
55. “You’re hideous, you know that, right?”
56. “I know. I was hoping,” I say.
“Exactly. Because you’re desperate,” says Haymitch.
I don’t argue because, of course, he’s right.”
57. “ll I can think about, every day, every waking minute since they drew Prim’s name at the reaping, is how afraid I am.”
58. “I guess this is a bad time to mention I hung a dummy and painted Seneca Crane’s name on it…”
59. “Because I can count on my fingers the number of sunsets I have left, and I don’t want to miss any of them.”
60. ″‘The bird, the pin, the song, the berries, the watch, the cracker, the dress that burst into flames. I am the mockingjay. The one that survived despite the Capitol’s plans. The symbol of the rebellion.‘”
61. “Beauty that arose out of pain.”
62. “I realize only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me.”
63. “I always channel my emotions into my work. That way, I don’t hurt anyone but myself.”
64. “But there was only one kiss that made me feel something stir deep inside. Only one that made me want more. But my head wound started bleeding and he made me lie down.”
65. “I pull an arrow, whip the notch into place, and am about to let it fly when I’m stopped by the sight of Finnick kissing Peeta. And it’s so bizarre, even for Finnick.”
66. “There was a plan to break us out of the arena from the moment the Quell was announced. The victor tributes from 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 11 had varying degrees of knowledge about it. Plutarch Heavensbee has been, for several years, part of an undercover group aiming to overthrow the Capitol.”
67. “I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now and live in it forever.”
68. “I look coolly in to the blue eyes of the person who is now my greatest opponent, the person who would keep me alive at his own expense. And I promise myself I will defeat his plan.”
69. “As the alcohol overcomes my mind, I hear the glass bottle shatter on the floor. This seems appropriate since I have obviously lost my grip on everything.”
70. “It must be very fragile, if a handful of berries can bring it down.”
71. “Technically, I am unarmed. But no one should ever underestimate the harm that fingernails can do. Especially if the target is unprepared.”
72. “Sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them.”
73. “Thanks,” I say. Because I can count on my fingers the number of sunsets I have left, and I don’t want to miss any of them.”
74. “I don’t care if you got knocked up. I can still rip your throat out”
75. “He puts the chain with the locket around my neck, then rests his hand over the spot where our baby would be. “You’re going to make a great mother, you know,” he says. He kisses me one last time and goes back to Finnick.”
76. “Whoever is picked first, the other will have the option of volunteering to take his place. I already know what will happen. Peeta will ask Haymitch to let him go into the arena with me no matter what. For my sake. To protect me.”
77. “I still don’t understand what happened there. Why he [Finnick] essentially abandoned her [Mags] to carry Peeta. Why she not only didn’t question it, but ran straight to her death without a moment’s hesitation. Was it because she was so old that her days were numbered, anyway?”
78. “I don’t know what it is with Finnick and bread, but he seems obsessed with handling it.”
79. “Well, what did I think? That the victors’ chain of locked hands last night would result in some sort of universal truce in the arena? No, I never believed that. But I guess I had hoped people might show some . . . what? Restraint? Reluctance, at least. Before they jumped right into massacre mode.”
80. “My nightmares are usually about losing you. I’m okay once I realize you’re here.”
81. “It means we’re on your side.” That’s what Bonnie said. I have people on my side? What side? Am I unwittingly the face of the hoped-for rebellion? Has the mockingjay on my pin become a symbol of resistance? If so, my side’s not doing too well.”
82. “And to us, we’re more married than any piece of paper or big party could make us.”
83. “Who knows who I would be or what I would talk about if I’d been raised in the Capitol? Maybe my biggest regret would be having feathered costumes at my birthday party, too.”
84. “At some point, you have to stop running and turn around and face whoever wants you dead.The hard thing is finding the courage to do it.”
85. “So it’s you and a syringe against the Capitol? See, this is why no one lets you make the plans.”
86. “We manage the darkness as we did in the arena, wrapped in each other’s arms, guarding against dangers that can descend at any moment.”
87. ″‘Why did you do it anyway?‘he says.
‘I don’t know. To show them that I’m more than just a piece in their Games?’ I say.”
88. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to stay right here and cause all kinds of trouble.”
89. “No one really needs me…I do I need you” Peeta and Katniss”
90. “A spark could be enough to set them ablaze.”
91. “I act delighted, but I have zero interest in these Capitol people. They are only distractions from the food.”
92. “That if desperate times call for desperate measures, then I’m free to act as desperately as I wish.”
93. “I go back to my room and lie under the covers, trying not to think of Gale and thinking of nothing else.”
94. “So I only say, “So what should we do with our last few days?”
95. “Whose is it, do you think?” I say finally.
“No telling,” says Finnick. “Why don’t we let Peeta claim it, since he died today?”
96. “Everything is happening too fast for me to process it.”
97. “So that’s who Finnick loves, I think. Not his string of fancy lovers in the Capitol. But a poor, mad girl back home. ”
98. “A leather bag filled with food and a flask of hot tea.”
99. “I had to do that. At least once.”
100. “Something inside me twists as I remember another voice. Rue. In the arena. When I gave her the leg of groosling. “Oh, I’ve never had a whole leg to myself before.” The disbelief of the chronically hungry.”
101. “Gale is mine. I am his. Anything else is unthinkable.”
102. “That’s when I hear the scream. So full of fear and pain it ices my blood. And so familiar. I drop the spile, forget where I am or what lies ahead, only know I must reach her, protect her. I run wildly in the direction of the voice, heedless of danger, ripping through vines and branches, through anything that keeps me from reaching her.”
103. “They can pump whatever they want into my arm but it takes more than that to keep a person going once she’s lost the will to live.”
104. “No wonder I won the Games. NO decent person ever does.”
105. “To show them that I’m more than just a piece in their Games?” I say.”
106. “You’ve got to go through it to get to the end of it.”
107. “Oh, the fun we two have together.”
