If you are really one of us, it won't matter to you that you might fail. And if it does, you are a coward.
Veronica RothDrink this," she says. "What is it?" my throat feels swollen. I swallow hard. "What's going to happen?" "Can't tell you that. Just trust me." I press air from my lungs and tip the contents of the vial into my mouth. My eyes close.
Veronica RothMy heart beats so hard it hurts, and I can't scream and I can't breathe, but I also feel everything, every vein and every fiber, every bone and every nerve, all awake and buzzing in my body as if charged with electricity. I am pure adrenaline.
Veronica RothTo me, when someone wrongs you, you both share the burden of that wrongdoing—the pain of it weighs on both of you. Forgiveness, then, means choosing to bear the full weight all by yourself.
Veronica RothI watch her blond head until it disappears around the bend, and I feel bare, like there's nothing left to protect me against pain. Her absence stings worst of all.
Veronica RothWe believe that preparation eradicates cowardice, which we define as the failure to act in the midst of fear.
Veronica RothOh, are we at the insult part of the breakup?" she says. "Because I got in a lot of practice after what happened with Will. I have several choice things to say about her nose.
Veronica RothThat night we push our cots just a little closer together, and look into each other's eyes in the moments before we fall asleep. When he finally drifts off, our fingers are twisted together in the space between the beds. I smile a little, and let myself go.
Veronica RothYou think my first instinct is to protect you. Because you're small, or a girl, or a Stiff. But you're wrong." He leans his face close to mine and wraps his fingers around my chin. His hand smells like metal. When was the last time he held a gun, or a knife? My skin tingles at the point of contact, like he's transmitting electricity through his skin. "My first instinct is to push you until you break, just to see how hard I have to press." he says, his fingers squeezing at the word break. My body tenses at the edge in his voice, so I am coiled as tight as a spring, and I forget to breathe.
Veronica RothI 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
Veronica RothAnd he’s right to say that every faction loses something when it gains a virtue: the Dauntless, brave but cruel; the Erudite, intelligent but vain; the Amity, peaceful but passive; the Candor, honest but inconsiderate; the Abnegation, selfless but stifling.
Veronica RothA Dauntless Ferris wheel wouldn’t have cars. You would just hang on tight with your hands, and good luck to you.
Veronica RothI want people to come away from my book with questions. Questions about virtue and goodness. Not answers.
Veronica RothSome people believe that I will go nowhere, and maybe they're right, but maybe they're not.
Veronica RothReally? I thought the transfers will go through Four’s landscape,” says Uriah. “Like he would let anyone do that,” she says, snorting. Something inside me gets warm and soft. He let me go through it.
Veronica RothHe should be the one to die, part of me thinks. I don't want to lose him, another part argues. I don't know which part to believe.
Veronica RothI don't really control the story. I just let it go where it wants to go. I have no idea what's going to happen in the end or who's going to live, so it's kind of like me saying, "I don't know, guys! Just wait." That's what I'm doing!
Veronica RothIs there any other way to Erudite headquarters?" I say. "Not that I now of," says Cara. "Unless you want to jump from one roof to another." She laughs a little as she says it, like it's a joke. I raise my eyebrows at her. "Wait," she says. "You aren't considering---?
Veronica RothI am wearing a gray shirt, blue jeans, black shoes--new clothes, but beneath them, my Dauntless tattoos. It is impossible to erase my choices. Especially these.
Veronica RothI met him while I was imprisoned," I say, and my voice sounds far away even to me. "I was just curious." "I wouldn't judge him too harshly," says Fernando. "Jeanine can be extraordinarily persuasive to those who aren't naturally suspicious. I have always been naturally suspicious." ... "Yeah," I say. "So have I.
Veronica RothI keep finding myself stifled by the company of others and then crippled by loneliness when I leave them. I am terrified and I don't even know of what, because I have lost everything already.
Veronica RothI know that change is difficult, and comes slowly, and that it is the work of many days strung together in a long line until the origin of them is forgotten.
Veronica RothI would be shocked by the lack of security if we were not at Amity headquarters. They often straddle the line between trust and stupidity.
Veronica RothI have realized that part of being Dauntless is being willing to make things more difficult for yourself in order to be self-sufficient.
Veronica RothI respect you more than anyone. But right now I’m wondering what bothers you more, that I made a stupid decision or that I didn’t make your decision.
Veronica RothThis is what I wanted most to avoid: for my rises and falls to become Tobias's rises and falls. That's why I can't let him step in to defend me now.
Veronica RothThe first step to loving someone else is to recognize the evil in ourselves, so we can forgive them.
Veronica Roth