“Mom used to say that politeness is deception in pretty packaging”

It’s strange how time can make a place shrink, make its strangeness ordinary.

To live factionless Is not just to live in poverty and discomfort; it is to live divorced from society, separated from the most important thing in life: community.

You won,” Four mutters. “Stop.” I wipe the sweat from my forehead. He stares at me. His eyes are too wide; they look alarmed.

I can’t answer either question. But the look she gives me reminds me of the look in the attack dog’s eyes in the aptitude test – a vicious, predatory stare. She wants to rip me to pieces. I can’t lie down in submission now. I have become an attack dog too.

Do remember, though, that sometimes the people you oppress become mightier than you would like.

Without a faction we have no purpose and no reason to live.

It isn’t right to wish pain on other people just because they hurt me first.

It doesn’t prove anything except that you’re bullying us. Which, as I recall, is a sign of cowardice.

It reminds me why I chose Dauntless in the first place: not because they are perfect, but because they are alive. Because they are free.

But now, I am also learning this: we can be mended. We mend each other.

He stares at me, and I don’t look away. He isn’t a dog, but the same rules apply. Looking away is submissive.

Sometimes, the best way to help someone is just to be near them.

Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We can’t escape that damage. But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other.

I’m sick of doing bad things and liking it and then wondering what’s wrong with me. I want it to be over. I want to start again.

I traded cowardice for cruelty; I traded weakness for ferocity.

I have never been carried around by a large boy, or laughed until my stomach hurt at the dinner table, or listened to the clamor of a hundred people all talking at once. Peace is restrained; this is free.

Deceit is the false road to happiness; and all the joys we travel through to vice, like fairy banquets, vanish when we touch them.

A deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths.

Profit is sweet, even if it comes from deception.

Truth lives on in the midst of deception.

The fundamental factor of self-deception is this constant desire to be something in this world and in the world hereafter.

The world we live in is a forest of frost, with crystal ice webs of lies and deception.

The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity.

Everything about the left is perception, manipulation, and lies. Everything. Everything is ‘Wag the Dog.’ Everything is a structured deception.