They try to make you think they care about what you do but they don't. They don't want you to act a certain way. So you're easy to understand. So you won't pose a threat to them.

Be brave, Beatrice. I love you.

A sob racks my body again, and he wraps his arms around me so tightly I find it difficult to breathe, but it doesn't matter. My dignified weeping gives way to full-on ugliness, my mouth open and my face contorted and sounds like a dying animal coming from my throat. If this continues I will break apart, and maybe that would be better, maybe it would be better to shatter and bear nothing.

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.

I wasn't good enough for abnegation," I say, "and I wanted to be free. So I chose Dauntless." "Why weren't you good enough?" "Because I was selfish." I say. "You were selfish? You aren't anymore?" "Of course I am. My mother said that everyone is selfish," I say, "but I became less selfish in Dauntless. I discovered there were people I would fight for. Die for, even.

Why do people want to pretend that death is sleep? It isn't. It isn't.

Maybe it's a little depressing to think that my vision of a perfect world is actually so messed up, but I think it means that I don't really understand what 'perfect' is.