“I gasp, pressing both palms to my chest. Now the monstrous thing has its claws around my throat, squeezing my airway. I twist and put my head between my knees, breathing until the strangled feeling leaves me.”

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.

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

God has never done much but creep around and try to catch us disobeying it.

Baseball fans love numbers. They love to swirl them around their mouths like Bordeaux wine.

The way to turn our economy around is not by making rich people poorer, it’s by making poor people richer.

If people around you aren’t going anywhere, if their dreams are no bigger than hanging out on the corner, or if they’re dragging you down, get rid of them.

Heaven lies around us in our infancy.

Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it.

I’ve been around a while. I kinda know these things.

I think my whole identity is formed around not knowing where I’m from. It might even be that I find comfort in that confusion.