This is how we came by our factions: Candor, Erudite, Amity, Abnegation and Dauntless." Max smiles. "In them we find administrators and teachers and counselors and leaders and protectors. In them we find our sense of belonging, our sense of community, our very lives.

Trust me when I tell you, Eaton boy, that resisting is worth doing.

All I want to say is that when you stop being delusional and start feeling desperate because you're too inept to figure this out on your own, you know who to come to.

My heart beats so hard it hurts, and I can't scream and I can't breathe, but I also feel everything, every vein and every fiber, every bone and every nerve, all awake and buzzing in my body as if charged with electricity. I am pure adrenaline.

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

I did not know that my entire personality, my entire being, could be discarded as the byproduct of my anatomy. What if I really am just someone with a large prefrontal cortex...and nothing more?

I note how calm she looks and how focused she is. She is well-practiced in the art of losing herself. I can't say the same of myself.