“A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. Even closer, so we would be breathng the same air- if I could remember to breathe. ‘No, Tris,’ he says. A more serious look replaces his smile as he adds, ‘You look tough as nails.”

His fingers slide into my hair, and I hold on to his arms to stay steady as we press together like two blades at a stalemate.

Nature is neutral. Nature doesn’t care how much money a person makes.

…there is power in self-sacrifice.

The truth has a way of changing people’s plans.

Grief is not as heavy as guilt, but it takes more away from you.

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.

That’s what love does. When it’s right, it makes you more than you were, more than you thought you could be.

We are not people who touch each other carelessly; every point of contact between us feels important, a rush of energy and relief.

“Oh, you know,” I say. “Sun shining. Birds chirping.” She raises an eyebrow at me, as if reminding me that we are in an underground tunnel.

He is stronger than anyone I know, and warmer than anyone else realizes; he is a secret that I have kept, and will keep for the rest of my life.

Every 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.

Sometimes drastic change requires drastic measures.

Sometimes crying or laughing are the only options left, and laughing feels better right now.

You don’t believe things because they make your life better, you believe them because they’re true.

I know exactly how we fit together, his arm around my waist, my hands on his chest, the pressure of his lips on mine. We have each other memorized.

Mom used to say that politeness is deception in pretty packaging

When you walk the track and you see a corner and realise you were going round it at 160mph, you wonder who could be so stupid to take a corner at that speed. But in the car, you don’t even think about that.

I do not deny that many appear to have succeeded in a material way by cutting corners and by manipulating associates, both in their professional and in their personal lives.

That’s an exaggeration but there are times when you have to turn the corner and do an acoustic set.

I sit in a corner by myself and am tickled to death when someone comes over to talk to me.

As these machines leak into every corner of our lives, they will annoy us, infuriate us, and even kill a few of us.

I would box them into a corner with a badly formed question, and they didn’t know how to get out of it. Now, I let them take me through it step by step, and I listen.

I’ve seen enough things to know that if you just keep on going, if you turn the corner, the sun will be shining.

I was playing a part of someone dealing dope on a street corner – and there was a guy actually dealing heroin right there. I looked at him, he looked at me, and I got real confused.