Veronica Roth Quotes

If they told us what to believe, and we didn't come to it on our own, is it still true?

Caleb and Tris exchange a look. The skin on his face and on her knuckles is nearly the same colour, purple-blue-green, as if drawn with ink. This is what happens when siblings collide - they injure each other in the same way.

I never used to understand why people bothered to hold hands as they walked, but then he runs one of his fingertips down my palm, and I shiver and understand it completely

You sadistic pansycake.

I have discovered that sitting still leaves little spaces for the grief to get in, so I stay busy.

Is this Prior?" "In the flesh." "Why's he bleeding?" "Because he's an idiot." Zeke offers me a black jacket with a factionless symbol stitched into the collar. "I didn't know that idiocy caused people to just start spontaneously bleeding from the nose." I wrap the jacket around Caleb's shoulders and fasten one of the buttons over his chest. He avoids my eyes. "I think it's a new phenomenon.", I say.

Since he saved me from the attack, I have associated his smell with safety, so as long as I focus on it, I feel safe now.

But when you kill someone you love, the hard part is never over. It just gets easier to distract yourself from what you've done.

Change, like healing, takes time.

Take away someone’s fear, or low intelligence, or dishonesty . . . and you take away their compassion. Take away someone’s aggression and you take away their motivation, or their ability to assert themselves. Take away their selfishness and you take away their sense of self-preservation.

Four!" I call out. Why am I calling a number? Oh yes. Because that's his name. — Tris.

He turns toward me. I want to touch him, but I’m afraid of his bareness; afraid that he will make me bare too. ‘Is this scaring you, Tris?’ ‘No,’ I croak. I clear my throat. ‘Not really. I’m only…afraid of what I want.’ ‘What do you want?’ Then his face tightens. ‘Me?’ Slowly I nod.

I decide to do what I always do when I'm not sure what's going on: I act like everyone else.

"You die, I die too.” Tobias looks over his shoulder at me. “I asked you not to do this. You made your decision. These are the repercussions."

You want him to walk?" Caleb demands. "Are you insane?" "Did I shoot him in the leg?" I say. "No. He walks. Where do we go, Peter?

I don't want to stop you. I want you to stop yourself.

I don't know if you know this," Tobias says, "but Edward is a little unstable." "I'm getting that," I say. "That Drew guy who helped Peter perform that butterknife maneuver," Tobias says. "Apparently when he got kicked out of Dauntless, he tried to join the same group of factionless Edward was a part of. Notice that you haven't seen Drew anywhere.

I frown at him. How does he know all this information? And why, after two years of avoiding becoming a Dauntless leader at all costs, is he suddenly acting like one?

Arrogance is one of the flaws in the Erudite heart -- I know. It is often in mine.

I have a theory that selflessness and bravery aren't all that different.

'Divergent' was my utopian world. I mean, that wasn't the plan. I never even set out to write dystopian fiction, that's just what I had when I was finished. At the beginning, I was just writing about a place I found interesting and a character with a compelling story, and as I began to build the world, I realized that it was my utopia.

It seems like the rebellions never stop, in the city, in the compound, anywhere. There are just breaths between them, and foolishly, we call those breaths “peace".

We kiss again and this time, it feels familiar. I know exactly how we fit together, his arm around my waist, my hands on his chest, the pressure of his lips on mine. We have each other memorized.

I smirk as Peter misses again. I can't help myself. "Hey, Peter," I say, " Remember what a target is?

Tris: Wait. So you have no idea what my aptitude is? Tori: Yes and No. My conclusion is that you display equal aptitude for Abnegation, Dauntless and Erudite. People who get this kind of result are..are called...Divergent.

I didn't know that idiocy caused people to just start spontaneously bleeding from the nose.

Dauntless: being brave in the midst of fear.

Human beings as a whole cannot be good for long before the bad creeps back in and poisons us again.

Come on,'he says.' I have something else to show you.

THE SERUM WEARS off five hours later, when the sun is just beginning to set. Tobias shut me in my room for the rest of the day, checking on me every hour. This time when he comes in, I am sitting on the bed, glaring at the wall. “Thank God,” he says, pressing his forehead to the door. “I was beginning to think it would never wear off and I would have to leave you here to … smell flowers, or whatever you wanted to do while you were on that stuff.

"What did you do?" I scream. "You die, I die too."

I belong to the people I love, and they belong to me--they, and the love and loyaty I give them, form my identity far more than any word or group ever could.

Evil depends on where you're standing.

I am better off doing as abnegation taught me: turning away from myself, projecting always outward, and hoping that in whatever is next, I will be better than I am now.

No matter how long you train someone to be brave, you never know if they are or not until something real happens.

I get the strange urge to hit my head against the wall. Other people's sobs make me feel uncomfortable.

Tricking someone into grief is one of the cruelest tricks a person can play, and its been played on me twice.

You're the one who has to live with your choice, everyone else will get over it, move on, no matter what you decide. But you never will

...there is power in self-sacrifice.

Too bad you didn't just take Max up on his offer, Four. Well, too bad for you, anyway," says Eric quietly as he clicks the bullet into its chamber. My lungs burn; I haven't breathed in almost a minute. I see Tobias's hand twitch in the corner of my eye, but my hand is already on my gun. I press the barrel to Eric's forehead. His eyes widen, and his face goes slack, and for a second he looks like another sleeping Dauntless soldier. My index finger hovers over the trigger. "Get your gun away from his head," I say. "You won't shoot me," Eric replies. "Interesting theory. " I say.

Suicide to them is an act of selfishness. Someone who is truly selfless does not think of himself often enough to desire death.

I have to face the fear. I have to take control of the situation and find a way to make it less frightening.

Uriah drops his tray next to me. It is loaded with beef stew and chocolate cake. I stare at the cake pile. “There was cake?” I say, looking at my own plate, which is more sensibly stocked than Uriah’s. “Yeah, someone just brought it out. Found a couple boxes of the mix in the back and baked it,” he says. “You can have a few bites of mine.” “A few bites? So you’re planning on eating that mountain of cake by yourself?” “Yes.” He looks confused. “Why?” “Never mind.

I did not know that my entire personality, my entire being, could be discarded as the byproduct of my anatomy. What if I really am just someone with a large prefrontal cortex...and nothing more?

Then I realize what it is. It's him. Something about him makes me feel like I am about to fall. Or turn to liquid. Or burst into flames.

It's like he knows, he knows I have a thing for her.

When I look at him, I don't see the cowardly young man who sold me out to Jeanine Matthews, and i don't hear the excuses he gave afterward. When I look at him, I see the boy who held my hand in the hospital when our mother broke her wrist and told me it would be all right. I see the brother who told me to make my own choices, the night before the Choosing Ceremony. I think of all the remarkable things he is--smart and enthusiastic and observant, quiet and earnest and kind.

His hands skim my bare arms. “Just bounce a little when you walk,” he says, kissing my forehead, “and pretend you’re afraid of their guns” —another kiss between my eyebrows— “and act like the shrinking violet you could never be ”—a kiss on my cheek— “and you’ll be fine.