It’s strange how time can make a place shrink, make its strangeness ordinary.
VERONICA ROTHIt’s strange how time can make a place shrink, make its strangeness ordinary.
VERONICA ROTHIn ‘Insurgent’ we realise how large the world really is
VERONICA ROTHEvery faction conditions its members to think and act a certain way. And most people do it. For most people, it’s not hard to learn, to find a pattern of thought that works and stay that way. But our minds move in a dozen different directions.
VERONICA ROTHI didn’t know that idiocy caused people to just start spontaneously bleeding from the nose.
VERONICA ROTHIt doesn’t prove anything except that you’re bullying us. Which, as I recall, is a sign of cowardice.
VERONICA ROTHSometimes all I want is to be a few inches taller so the world does not look like a dense collection of torsos.
VERONICA ROTHDo remember, though, that sometimes the people you oppress become mightier than you would like.
VERONICA ROTHMy mother told me once that we can’t survive alone, but even if we could, we wouldn’t want to.
VERONICA ROTHAll 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.
VERONICA ROTHCruelty does not make a person dishonest, the same way bravery does not make a person kind.
VERONICA ROTHI’ve done without doing things, like sleeping and eating, but I need to write.
VERONICA ROTHSometimes, all it takes to save people from a terrible fate is one person willing to do something about it. Even if that “something” is a fake bathroom break.
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 ROTHBut now, I am also learning this: we can be mended. We mend each other.
VERONICA ROTHIn that moment I know exactly what I want; I want to peel away all the layers of clothing between us, strip away everything that separates us, the past and the present and the future.
VERONICA ROTHI laugh, and it’s laughter, not light, that casts out the darkness building within me, that reminds me I am still alive, even in this strange place where everything I’ve ever known is coming apart.
VERONICA ROTH