The official strategy is defensive pessimism, always.

Peter would probably throw a party if I stopped breathing.' 'Well,' he says, 'I would only go if there was cake.

The battle we are fighting is not against a particular group. It is against human nature - or at least what it has become.

I'll say it one last time: Be brave.

I look out the window again, taking slow, deep breaths into a body too tense to move. And as I stare out at the land, I think that this, if nothing else, is compelling evidence for my parents’ God, that our world is so massive that it is completely out of our control, that we cannot possibly be as large as we feel. -Tris Prior

I feel the monster of grief again, writhing in the empty space where my heart and stomach used to be. I gasp, pressing both palms to my chest. Now the monstrous thing has its claws around my throat, squeezing my airway. I twist and put my head between my knees, breathing until the strangled feeling leaves me.

That's the first time I've ever said those words out loud, and now I hear how strange they are. How many young men fear that there is a monster instead them? People are supposed to fear others, not themselves.