Why don't I just pretend I'm on camera, Plutarch?" I say. "Yes! Perfect. One is always much braver with an audience," he says. "Look at the courage Peeta just displayed!" It's all I can do not to slap him.

If you are not trying to hold on to time, you are not so afraid of losing it.

Since Mags seems to have no ill effects from the nuts, Peeta collects bunches of them and fries them by bouncing them off the force field.

Don't you see, Katniss, this will decide things. One way or the other. By the end of the day, they'll ether be dead or with us. It's...it's more than we could hope for! Well, that's a sunny view of our situation.

Living out here, I have found that many creatures would prefer not to fight. But if your first instinct is to reach for your sword, you will never discover that.

I miss home badly sometimes. But then I remember there's nothing left to miss anymore. I feel safer here.

My little sister, Prim, curled up on her side, cocooned in my mother’s body, their cheeks pressed together. In sleep, my mother looks younger, still worn but not so beaten-down. Prim’s face is as fresh as a raindrop, as lovely as the primrose for which she was named. My mother was very beautiful once, too. Or so they tell me.