“In order to have peace, we must first have trust.”

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.

Part of me wonders if this is a suicide mission disguised as a game.

Pride is what killed Al, and it is the flaw in every Dauntless heart. It is in mine.

Ingenuity requires creativity.

Reading is such a huge part of my life.

When you’re a writer, you hear your internal critic, and that’s really hard to get over. And then sometimes you hear critiques from classmates and stuff.

I feel like what I have become is halfway between my mother and my father, violent and impulsive and desperate and afraid. I feel like I have lost control of what I have become.

Being honest doesn’t mean you say whatever you want, wherever you want. It means that what you choose to say is true.

An important technology first creates a problem and then solves it.

The most disastrous thing that you can ever learn is your first programming language.

When the Mac first came out, Newsweek asked me what I [thought] of it. I said: Well, it’s the first personal computer worth criticizing.

It is not a tool, although it can act like many tools. It is the first metamedium, and as such it has degrees of freedom for representation and expression never before encountered and as yet barely investigated.

When I first saw Richard Pryor perform, I told him, ‘You’re doing a Jewish act.’

During the first day, curious at having outsiders among them, a long stream of inmates came over and talked with me.

Whenever I’m out-of-doors and find myself wanting to have a first-rate think.

We need to create the beauty and the quality first. The quantity will follow.