“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.”

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 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.

The fire, the fire. It rages within, a campfire and then an inferno, and my body is its fuel.

Desperation can make a person do surprising things.

I am a naturally curious person. -Tris

Do I look like I’ve been crying?’ I say. ‘Hmm.’ He leans in close, narrowing his eyes like he’s inspecting my face.

My mother once told me that we can’t survive alone,but even if we could, we wouldn’t want to. Without a faction, we have no purpose and no reason to live.

I know that change is difficult, and comes slowly, and that it is the work of many days strung together in a long line until the origin of them is forgotten.

Shh,” I say. “Arms around me.” Obediently, he slips both arms around my waist. I smile at the wall. I am not enjoying this. I am not, not even a little bit, no.

Change, like healing, takes time.

I am terrified and I don’t even know of what, because I have lost everything already.