Ally Condie

“That’s how I know they are dreams. Because the simple and plain and everyday things are the ones that we can never have. (Cassia Reyes)”

“I never needed the Society," she says, "to Match me." (-Lei)”

“But then I realize that even if I did have a soul, it’s not as though someone else would be there. It would only be more of me.”

“In the end you can't always choose what to keep. You can only choose how you let it go.”

“...I do not know how I can feel this much pain and survive, and at the same time know how much I have to live.”

“Reaching and reached. Cassia”

“Teens find out a lot from other teens.”

“When we read dystopia, we root for these people to break free because we are these people; hoping and fighting against things that are bigger than ourselves.”

“There's nothing like reading about a world that feels dead to throw your own beautiful, colorful life into sharp relief.”

“I had really great parents who always gave me lots of opportunity for choice, but I didn't always realize how rare that was for a girl for them to say, 'You can be a mom or have a career or do both or do something we haven't thought of yet.'”

“But if you were matched," I say softly, "What do you think she'd be like?""You," he says, almost before I've finished. "You,”

“Lightning. Once it has forked, hot-white, from sky to earth, there is no going back”

“It is strange how we hold on to the pieces of the past while we wait for our futures.”

“Do not go gentle. So I fight. I fight the only way I know how.”

“Until now, I've never been able to see while I fly, and I feel a dizzying lightness as I look out at the land bel”

“Sometimes paper is only paper," my mothers says. "Words are just words. Ways to capture the real thing. Don't be afraid to remember that."I know what she means. Writing, painting, singing--it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death's footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives.”

“Some people think the stars must look closer from up here. They don't.When you're up here, you realize how distant they really are--how impossible to reach.”

“We need you.""I'm sorry, but I can't let that keep me here anymore.”

“I can trust in my parents' love. And it strikes me that is a big thing to trust, a big thing to have had, no matter what else happens.”

“Inside me are the real things that give me strength—my thoughts, the small stones of my own choosing. They tumble in my mind, some polished from frequent turning, some new and rough, some that cut.”