Everyone has to blame something for the way the world is.

To live factionless Is not just to live in poverty and discomfort; it is to live divorced from society, separated from the most important thing in life: community. My mother once told me that we can’t survive alone,but even if we could, we wouldn’t want to. Without a faction, we have no purpose and no reason to live.

I never used to understand why people bothered to hold hands as they walked, but then he runs one of his fingertips down my palm, and I shiver and understand it completely

This concept could easily have gone awry. Stories about love tend to go that way sometimes. They wander into the realm of cheese and never return, which I think is a shame, because there is a way to write about romantic love without breaking out the Velveeta.

I see love developing from friendship. Common ground is a strong basis for friendship. My husband is my best friend and we have a lot in common even though we're admittedly different people. I think it evolves from how I see relationships working. You know, the opposites attract thing happens all the time, but so does the best friends thing. It's just a great kind of relationship in fiction.

His eyes search the crowd until they find my face. My heartbeat lives in my throat; lives in my cheeks. "I still don't understand," he says softly, "how she knew that it would work.

How is it I know this little about the boy who says he loves me-