But courage wasn't an absence of fear; it was fighting despite the knot in your stomach.

Life…never gave me a chance to be soft.

With a polite smile, I decided she was insane.

Love sounded terrible if it made you so weak, you couldn't survive with out it.

It’s easy to do right when everything goes right. But let everything go wrong, and see how difficult it becomes.

In the enclave, the strong and the physically perfect survived, but if you were strong, you protected the weak until they had an opportunity to grow into their own power.

Have you ever watched a child learning to walk? Before this week, I never had, but there's a certain grace to it. Well, if not grace, then tenacity. Fall down nine times--get up ten. And the tenth time you get where you're going, you don't stop, not for obstacles, not for other people telling you to stop. You don't listen to anything but that inner voice until you arrive where you want to be.