It's an incredible thing, how you can feel so taken care of by someone and yet feel, also, like you would die or do anything just for the chance to protect him back.

Fear. Blame. Don't forget. Mom. I love you. -Lauren Oliver, Delerium

The priests and the scientists are right about one thing: At our heart, at our base, we are no better than animals.

That’s a funny thing: you think, when awful things happen, everything else just stops, like you would forget to pee and eat and get thirsty, but it’s not really true. It’s like you and your body are two separate things, like your body is betraying you, chugging on, idiotic and animal, craving water and sandwiches and bathroom breaks while your world falls apart.

They've lied about everything.-about the fence, and the existence of Invalids, about a million other things besides. They told us the raids were carried out for our own protection. They told us the regulators were only interested in keeping the peace. They told us love was a disease. They told us it would kill us in the end. For the very first time I realize, that this, too, maight also be a lie.

This was what being cured was like: like being in a fishbowl, circling always inside the same glass.

That's when you realize that most of it-life, the relentless mechanism of existing-isn't about you. It doesn't include you at all. It will thrust onward even after you've jumped the edge. Even after you're dead.