“I feel the monster of grief again, writhing in the empty space where my heart and stomach used to be.”

It will be difficult to break the habits of thinking Abnegation instilled in me, like tugging a single thread from a complex work of embroidery. But I will find new habits, new thoughts, new rules. I will become something else.

It’s strange how a word, a phrase, a sentence, can feel like a blow to the head.

If I let a little of the emotion out, all of it will come out, and it will never end.

Sorry, am I being rude?” she asks. “I’m used to saying whatever is on my mind.

Dauntless: being brave in the midst of fear.

All I can do is stand still- I feel like if I just stand still, I can stop it from being true, I can pretend that everything is all right.

Killing you is not the worst thing they can do to you,” I say. “Controlling you is.

But when a book comes out, it’s just hundreds of opinions and you have to learn to separate out the ones you want to listen to or figure out many you want to listen to.

My mother knit scarves for the neighborhood kids. My father helped Caleb with his homework. There was a fire in the fireplace and peace in my heart, as I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing, and everything was quiet.

We believe in shouting for those who can only whisper, in defending those who cannot defend themselves.

There are so many ways to be brave in this world.

I feel like myself, strong and weak at once – allowed, at least for a little while, to be both.

I think they’re going to force us to eat lots of cake and then take an unreasonably long nap.

Sometimes all I want is to be a few inches taller so the world does not look like a dense collection of torsos.

Not writing is as important as writing – go out into the world and remember how interesting it, and the people in it, are.

To find that place between what I want and what I think is wise.

I am incapable of telling you not to feel. Feel, feel, I say – feel for all you’re worth, and even if it half kills you, for that is the only way to live.

You can feel when something’s authentic, and you can feel when it’s not: you know when someone’s trying to make the club record, or trying to make the girl record, or trying to make the thug record. It’s none of that. It’s just my emotions.

We want people to feel with us more than to act for us.

We have to be careful not to elevate our preferences to moral standards and judge others by them. We only do so to feel superior.

The age seems sore from excess of stimulation, just as a day or two after a thorough Debauch and long sustained Drinking-match a man feels all over like a Bruise.

I’m a part of the music that happened. My voice is one more instrument, is what it is. So that’s the way I feel about people who “play on sessions.

Jobless people will have no self-confidence. And they feel they are worthless because when you don’t have a job you have to rely on someone.

Certainly the people who are close to me are happier. They feel freer.