Veronica Roth

“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.”

“People are supossed to aspire to become their fathers, not shudder at the thought.”

“It's strange to see people you don't know well in the morning, with sleepy eyes and pillow creases in their cheeks”

“Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m all right?” I say.“No, I’m pretty sure you’re not all right.”He shakes his head. “I’m going to ask you not to make any decisions until we’ve talkedabout it.”

“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.”

“It is impossible to erase my choices.”

“Ingenuity requires creativity.”

“Psyche you out?" I repeat. "I'm your FRIEND. I wouldn't do that." He doesn't say anything. I can tell he doesn't believe me-not quite.”

“It isn’t right to wish pain on other people just because they hurt me first.”

“Yeah, well," I say, "I left Abnegation because I wasn't selfless enough, no matter how hard I tried to be.""That's not entirely true." He smiles at me. "That girl who let someone throw knives at her to spare a friend, who hit my dad with a belt to protect me-that selfless girl, that's not you?"..."You've been paying close attention, haven't you?""I like to observe people/""Maybe you were cut out for Candor, Four, because you're a terrible liar.”

“I have a scar-a faint gouge in my knee from when I fell down on the sidewalk as a child. It's always seemed stupid to me that none of the pain I've experienced has left a visible mark; sometimes, without a way to prove it to myself. I began to doubt that I had lied through it at all, with the memories becoming hazy over time. I want to have some kind of reminder that while wounds heal, they don't disappear forever- I carry them everywhere, always, and that is the way of things, the way of scars.That is what this tattoo will be, for me: a scar. And it seems fitting that it should document the worst memory of pain I have.”

“I open my eyes and for the first time stare openly at my own reflection. My heart rate picks up as I do, like I am breaking the rules and will be scolded for it. It will be difficult to break the habits of thinking Abnegation instilled in me, like tugging a single thread from a complex work of embroidery. But I will find new habits, new thoughts, new rules. I will become something else. …Looking at myself now isn’t like seeing myself for the first time; it’s like seeing someone else for the first time. Beatrice was a girl I saw in stolen moments at the mirror, who kept quiet at the dinner table. This is someone whose eyes claim mine and don’t release me; this is Tris.”

“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.”

“There is an art to Noavek bullshit," Cyra said as she muted the feed. "We're taught it from birth.”

“We are not people who touch each other carelessly; every point of contact between us feels important, a rush of energy and relief.”

“Mockery is childish. It does not become you.”

“We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another.”

“Some days are harder than others, but I am ready to live each one of them. I can't sacrifice myself, this time.”

“- It doesn't do anything obvious. But it might be able to do something in here. - Then she touched her hand to her heart. - Beautiful things sometimes do.”

“I didn't know that idiocy caused people to just start spontaneously bleeding from the nose.”