I tell myself, as sternly as possible, that is how things work here. We do dangerous things and people die. People die, and we move on to the next dangerous thing. The sooner that lesson sinks in, the better chance I have at surviving initiation.

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.

Peter leans forward and looks into my eyes. "The serum will go into effect in one minute," he says. "Be brave, Tris." My heart begins to race. Why would Peter tell me to be brave? Why would he offer any kind words at all?

My mother told me once 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.

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.

Human reason can excuse any evil; that is why it's so important that we don't rely on it.

It happened. It was awful. You aren't perfect. That's all there is. Don't confuse your grief with guilt.