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.

You're not very nice," I say, grinning. "You're one to talk." "Hey, I could be nice if I tried." "Hmm." He taps his chin. "Say something nice, then." "You're very good-looking." He smiles, his teeth a flash in this dark. "I like this 'nice' thing.

Sometimes I feel like there is so much to be afraid of, and sometimes I feel like there is nothing left to fear.

Abnegation produces deeply serious people. People who automatically see things like need,” he says. “I’ve noticed that when people switch to Dauntless, it creates some of the same types. Erudite who switch to Dauntless tend to turn cruel and brutal. Candor who switch to Dauntless tend to become boisterous, fight-picking adrenaline junkies. And Abnegation who switch to Dauntless become . . . I don’t know, soldiers, I guess. Revolutionaries.

Sometimes I still forget to look for the gentler parts of her. For so long all I saw was the strength, standing out like the wiry muscles in her arms or the black ink marking her collarbone with flight.

It doesn't take skill to stand in a place were no bullets find you, or to fire into the dark and hit a man you didn't see.

Seeing people who are actually reading your book and listening to the wide variety of reactions they have to it, is really special.