Soon I will honor my parents by dying as they died. and if all they believed about death was true, soon I will join them in whatever comes next.

I laugh, mirthless, a mad laugh. I savor the scowl on her face, the hate in her eyes. She was like a machine; she was cold and emotionless, bound by logic alone. And I broke her.

My problem might be that even if I did go home, I wouldn’t belong there, among people who give without thinking and care without trying.

Beatrice," she says. "Beatrice, we have to run." She pulls my arm across her shoulders and hauls me to my feet. She is dressed like my mother and she looks like my mother, but she is holding a gun, and the determined look in her eyes is unfamiliar to me.

I have realized that part of being Dauntless is being willing to make things more difficult for yourself in order to be self-sufficient.

It's strange how time can make a place shrink, make its strangeness ordinary.

Why are you constantly escorting me places?” I say. “Isn’t there a depraved activity you’re supposed to be taking part in? Kicking puppies or spying on girls while they change, or something?