Ally Condie

“But I also know we can’t plan on anyone else rescuing us. We have to do it ourselves.”

“Jag vill ta hans hand och trycka den mot mitt hjärta, precis där det värker som mest. Jag vet inte om ett sådant tilltag skulle bota smärtan eller kanske få mitt hjärta att brista helt, men oavsett vilket skulle den ihållande, hungriga väntan vara över.”

“En un lugar más allá del borde del mapa de la sociedad, el Piloto siempre vive y muere”

“She's right. We would compose poems about love and tell stories that have been heard in some form before. But it would be our first time feeling and telling.”

“I never needed the Society," she says, "to Match me." (-Lei)”

“When things like this happen—when what was meant to help results in harm, when a salve brings pain instead of healing—it is clear how wrong even choices intended to be right can become.”

“There is something extraordinary about the first time falling.”

“I wish that I did not have to tell him this lie, when he knows more of my truth than anyone else in the world.”

“So I fight. I fight the only way I know, with thinking of Ky, even thought the pain of missing him is so strong I can hardly stand it... I think of him, I think of him, I think of him.”

“I can trust in my parents' love. And it strikes me that is a big thing to trust, a big thing to have had, no matter what else happens.”

“My mother looks at me with love and understanding, and I realize: she knows what my father did. She knows what I want. She knows and even though she would not destroy a tissue sample or love someone who is not her Match, she still loves us, even though we have done those things.”

“They could not write their names, but I can write mine, and I will again, somewhere where it will last for a long, long time. I will find Ky, and then I will find that place.”

“Thank you," I tell Xander. "I didn't get anything for you -""It's all right," he says, "but maybe - you could -"He looks into my eyes and I know what he wants. A kiss. Even thought he knows about Ky. Xander and I are still connected; this is still good-bye. I know already that that kiss would be sweet. It would be what he would hold on to, as I hold on to Ky's.But that's something I don't think I can give. "Xander -""It's all right," he was, and then he stands up. I do too, and he reaches for me, pulls me close.”

“Then Xander whispers, "Cassia... if we could choose, would you ever have chosen me?”

“For one entire day I let his kiss burn on my cheek and into my blood and I don't push the memory away... This kiss, these words, they feel like beginning.”

“Ky gives me three gifts for my birthday. A poem, a kiss and the hopeless, beautiful belief that things might work. When I open my eyes... I say, "I didn't give you anything for your birthday, i don't even know when it is." And he says, "Don't worry about that" and I say, "What can I do?" and he answers, "Let me believe in this, all of this, and you believe it too."And I do.”

“I'll stand next to that fountain and wait until the Official find me. And when she does and asks me what I'm doing, I'll tell her and everyone else that I know: t hey are giving us pieces of a real life instead of the whole thing. And I'll tell her that I don't want my life to be samples and scraps. A taste of everything but a meal of nothing.”

“We do not kiss. We do nothing but hold on and breathe, but still I know. I cannot go gently now. Not even for the sake of my parents, my family.Not even for Xander.”

“I'm falling in love. I am in love. and it's not with Xander, though I do love him. I'm sure of that, as sure as I am of the fact what I feel for Ky is something different.”

“Any other questions?""Just one," I say. "What color are your eyes?" I want to know what he thinks, how he sees himself - the real Ky - when he dares to look."Blue," he says sounding surprised, "they've always been blue.""Not to me.""What do they look like to you?" he says puzzled, amused. Not looking at my mouth anymore, looking into my eyes."Lots of colors," I say. "At first I thought they were brown. Once I thought they were green...""What are they now?" he asks. He widens his eyes a little, leans closer, lets me look as long and deep as I want."Well?""Everything," I tell him, "They're everything.”

“At first, that's who I was. I wanted to know more about this boy who lives among us, but who never truly speaks... But now I feel like finding out about him is one of the ways I found out about myself. I did not expect to love his words. I did no expect to find myself in the.”

“Blue is the most common eye color in Oria Province, but there is something different about his eyes and I'm not sure what it is. More depth? I wonder what he sees when he looks at me. If he seems to have depth to me, do I seem shallow and transparent to him?”

“Ever since the day of the mistake with my Match. I've never known which life is my true one. Even with the reassurances of the Offical that day in the greenspace, I think a part of me hasn't felt at peace. It was as though I saw for the first time that life could branch into different paths, take different directions.”

“Ky still looks at me and I wonder for a moment if he is going to ask me what I am thinking about. But of course, he doesn't. He doesn't learn things by asking questions... He learns by watching.”

“It's raining. So I should remember.Something.Someone.The water is gathering inside of me.Who do I remember?I don't know.I'm drowning.I remember to breathe.I remember to breathe.I remember.I.”

“I wanted to run, but I couldn't leave Ky. And I didn't want him to hear the sounds of people trying to save the man, or how Ky's own breathing sounded labored.So I crouched down in front of Ky and covered one of his ears with my shaking hand, and then I leaned right up close to his other ear and I sang to him. I didn't even know I knew how.”

“Es curioso cómo nos aferramos a los objetos del pasado mientras aguardamos nuestro futuro.”

“It's good to know that Xander's here. So that when I go down, she won't be alone. "You walked through the Carving to find me," I tell Cassia softly. "I'm going to walk through this to reach you.”

“You told me once," I say to Ky, holding up the bud for him to see and then pressing it into his hand, "that red was the color of beginning." He smiles. The color of beginning. For a moment, a memory flickers in and out. It is a rare moment in spring when both buds on the trees and flowers on the ground are red. The air is cool and at the same time warm. Grandfather watches me, his eyes bright and determined.”

“You're not coming with us," I say, realizing."If things were different, I would," Indie says, and when she looks at me, it's hard to hold her honest, longing gaze. "But they aren't. And I still have flying to do." And then, fast, like a fish or a bird, she disappears from the entrance to the hold. No one can catch Indie when it's time for her to move.”

“You cannot change your journey if you are unwilling to move at all.P.232”

“Everything I dream is something simple and plain and everyday. That’s how I know they are dreams. Because the simple and plain and everyday things are the ones that we can never have”

“Newrose, Oldrose, Quean Anne's lace.Water, river, stone and sunWind over hill, under tree.Past the border none can see.Climbing into dark for you,Will you climb in stars for me?P.124”

“Physic himself must fade. All things to end are made;The plague full swift goes by.I am sick, I must dieP.98”

“Does loving someone mean you want them to be safe? Or that you want them to be able to choose?”

“Here," I say. "You can put music behind it, and it will be your own." And it strikes me that this is how writing anything is, really. A collaboration between you who give the words and they who take them and find meaning in them, or put music behind them, or turn them aside because they were not what was needed.”

“It's strange how we hold on to the pieces of the past while we wait for our futures.”

“Reading the situation correctly is part of getting through it safely.”

“Tell me a little every day and I'll remember it for you. Then there will be two of us who know.”

“It's never really lost to you as long as you remember it.”

“Reaching and reached. Cassia”

“Some people think the stars must look closer from up here. They don't. When you're up here, you realize how distant they really are—how impossible to reach.”

“Writing, painting, singing- it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death’s footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives.”

“I could write stories; I could hide from the world and make my own instead of trying to change it or live in it. I could make paper people and I would love them too; I could make them almost real.”

“It could have been different," I say, almost under my breath. If I'd kissed Indie again after she kissed me. If I hadn't known Cassia before I met Indie."But it's not," Indie says, and she's right.”

“Inside me are the real things that give me strength—my thoughts, the small stones of my own choosing. They tumble in my mind, some polished from frequent turning, some new and rough, some that cut.”

“But before I do,I open the case and watch the spinning arrow. It settles on a point, but I still spin, wondering where to go.”

“I love you," she whispers."I love you," I say back.I choose her again and again and again until the pilot interrupts us and it's time to fly.”

“My mother painted with water," he says. "And my father played with fire.”

“He stops just close enough for me to see the blue of his eyes and forget the red on my hands and the green I wish I wore.”