Veronica Roth

“I do know who you are. I just needed to be reminded.”

“Let me get this straight. So you left the Dauntless compound to get ready for war... and took your makeup bag with you?""Yep. Figured it would be harder for anyone to shoot me if they saw how devastatingly attractive I was...”

“I laugh, mirthless, a mad laugh. I savor the scowl on her face, the hate in her eyes. She was like a machine; she was cold and emotionless, bound by logic alone. And I broke her.”

“Arrogance is one of the flaws in the Erudite heart -- I know. It is often in mine.”

“I can't force you. I can't make you want to survive this." He pulls me against him and runs his hand over my hair, tucking it behind my ear. His fingers trail down my neck and over my shoulder, and he says, "But you will do it. It doesn't matter if you believe you can or not. You will, because that's who you are.”

“I wake wondering how I did not notice, every day I sat across from her at the breakfast table, that she was full to bursting with Dauntless energy. Was it because she hid it well? Or was it because I wasn't looking?”

“I came here so that no one else would die. I came here to protect as many people as I could. And I care more about Tobias's safety than anyone else's. So why am I here, if he's here? What's the point?”

“I used to think that cruelty required malice, but that is not true. Jeanine has no reason to act out of malice. But she is cruel because she doesn't care what she does, as long as it fascinates her. I may as well be a puzzle or a broken machine she wants to fix. She will break open my skull just to see the inner workings of my brain; I will die here, and that will be the merciful thing.”

“From your results I have determined that you are one of the strongest Divergent, which I say not to compliment you but to explain my purpose. If I am to develop a simulation that cannot be thwarted by the Divergent mind, I must study the strongest Divergent mind in order to shore up all weaknesses in the technology.”

“Soon I will honor my parents by dying as they died. and if all they believed about death was true, soon I will join them in whatever comes next.”

“I should probably be afraid. But instead a hysterical laugh bubbles inside me, because I just remembered something: Maybe I can’t hold a gun. But I have a knife in my back pocket.”

“I read somewhere, once, that crying defies scientific explanation. Tears are only meant to lubricate the eyes. There is no real reason for tear glands to overproduce tears at the behest of emotion. I think we cry to release the animal parts of us without losing our humanity.”

“What irritates me most about him is his natural goodness, his inborn selflessness.”

“I get up, because I’m supposed to, but if it were up to me, I’d stay in my seat for the rest of time.”

“Como un animal salvaje, la verdad es demasiado poderosa para mantenerse encarcelada.”

“Before I leave the bathroom, I pinch my cheeks hard to bring blood to the surface of my skin. It’s stupid, but I don’t want to look weak and exhausted in front of everyone.When I walk back into Tobias’s room, Uriah is sprawled across the bed facedown; Christina is holding the blue sculpture above Tobias’s desk, examining it; and Lynn is poised above Uriah with a pillow, a wicked grin creeping across her face.Lynn smacks Uriah hard in the back of the head, Christina says, “Hey Tris!” and Uriah cries, “Ow! How on earth do you make a pillow hurt, Lynn?”“My exceptional strength,” she says. “Did you get smacked, Tris? One of your cheeks is bright red.”I must not have pinched the other one hard enough. “No, it’s just … my morning glow.”

“He sits next to me and puts his arm on the back of my chair, leaning close. I don't stare back -- I refuse to stare back.I stare back.”

“I try to think of something helpful to say. I'm not going to die -- but I don't know that. We live in a dangerous world, and I am not so attached to life that I will do anything to survive. I can't reassure him.”

“His fingers leave streaks of cold on my skin, invisible to the eye, and I think about wrapping his shirt around my fist and pulling him in to kiss me; I think about pressing myself against him, but I can't, because all our secrets would keep a space between us.”

“This is what I wanted most to avoid: for my rises and falls to become Tobias's rises and falls. That's why I can't let him step in to defend me now.”

“I see a kind of thirst in her expression, the same one I saw when she told me about her brother in the back room of the tattoo parlor. Before the attack simulation I might have called it a thirst for justice, or even revenge, but now I am able to identify it as a thirst for blood. And even as it frightens me, I understand it.Which should probably frighten me even more.”

“If you throw yourself into danger for no reason again, you will have become nothing more than a Dauntless adrenaline junkie looking for a hit, and I'm not going to help you do it." He spits the words out bitterly. "I love Tris the Divergent, who makes decisions apart from faction loyalty, who isn't some faction archetype. But the Tris who's trying as hard as she can to destroy herself... I can't love her.”

“I'm not going to pretend to know what's going on with you," he says. "But if you senselessly risk your life again -- ""I am not senselessly risking my life. I am trying to make sacrifices, like my parents would have, like -- ""You are not your parents You are a sixteen-year-old girl --"I grit my teeth. "How dare you -- ""-- who doesn't understand that the value of a sacrifice lies in its necessity, not in throwing your life away! And if you do that again, you and I are done.”

“Candor does not provide us with protection, sustenance, or technological innovation. Therefore you are expendable to us.”

“I hold the gun out from my body, my arms straight, just as Four taught me, when that was his only name. I used a gun like this to defend my father and brother from simulation-bound Dauntless. I used it to stop Eric from shooting Tobias in the head. It is not inherently evil. It is just a tool.”

“All I want to say is that when you stop being delusional and start feeling desperate because you're too inept to figure this out on your own, you know who to come to.”

“I know I belong in Dauntless because everything I did in that aptitude test told me so. I'm loyal to my faction for that reason -- because there's nowhere else I could possibly be. But her? And you?" She shakes her head. "I have no idea who you're loyal to. And I'm not going to pretend like everything's okay.”

“I frown at him. How does he know all this information? And why, after two years of avoiding becoming a Dauntless leader at all costs, is he suddenly acting like one?”

“Little girl, he called me. A little girl who is stressed out to the point of paranoia. That is not me, but now, it's who the Candor think I am.”

“Killing you is not the worst thing they can do to you," I say. "Controlling you is.”

“Yes," Marcus says. "I understand that you are concerned -- that you all are concerned. You had never heard of the Divergent a week ago, and now all that you know is that they are immune to something to which you are susceptible, and that is a frightening thing. But I can assure you that there is nothing to be afraid of, as far as we are concerned."As he speaks, his head tilts and his eyebrows lift in sympathy, and I understand at once why some people like him. He makes you feel that if you just placed everything in his hands, he would take care of it.”

“You're more than Dauntless," he says in a low voice. "But if you want to be just like them, hurling yourself into ridiculous situations for no reason and retaliating against your enemies without any regard for what's ethical, go right ahead. I thought you were better than that, but maybe I was wrong.”

“I can't tell him I need him. I can't need him, period -- or really, we can't need each other, because who knows how long either of us will last in this war?”

“God, Four!" I snap. "You don't want to have to tell me everything right away, but I have to tell you everything right away? Can't you see how stupid that is?""First of all, don't use that name like a weapon against me," he says, pointing at me.”

“I do trust you, is what I want to say. But it isn't true -- I didn't trust him to love me despite the terrible things I had done. I don't trust anyone to do that, but that isn't his problem; it's mine.”

“Maybe time would not feel as heavy if I didn't have this guilt -- the guilt of knowing the truth and stuffing it down where no one can see it, not even Tobias. Maybe I should not be so afraid of saying anything, because honesty will make me feel lighter.”

“I look older. Maybe it's the short hair or maybe it's just that I wear all that has happened like a mask. Either way, I always thought I would be happy when I stopped looking like a child. But all I feel is a lump in my throat. I am no longer the daughter my parents knew. They will never know me as I am now.”

“No factions? A world in which no one knows who they are or where they fit? I can't even fathom it. I imagine only chaos and isolation.”

“Why would the factionless have a high Divergent population?" It sounds like she's smirking. "Obviously those who can't confine themselves to a particular way of thinking would be most likely to leave a faction or fail its initiation, right?”

“How is it I know this little about the boy who says he loves me -- the boy whose real name is powerful enough to keep us alive in a train car full of enemies?”

“My name is Tobias Eaton," Tobias says. "I don't think you want to push me off this train."The effect of the name on the people in the car is immediate and bewildering: they lower their weapons. They exchange meaningful looks."Eaton? Really?" Edward says, eyebrows raised. "I have to admit, I did not see that coming." He clears his throat. "Fine, you can come. But when we get to the city, you've got to come with us."Then he smiles a little. "We know someone who's been looking for you, Tobias Eaton.”

“I look up, and stop breathing.Eyes glitter in the darkness. Dark shapes sit in the car, more numerous than we are.The factionless.”

“I didn't realize until that moment that Dauntless initiation had taught me an important lesson: how to keep going.”

“It is amazing how pretending to be in a different faction changes everything -- even the way I walk. That must be why it's so strange that I could easily belong in three of them.”

“The Amity Established this place as a safe house. No conflict allowed.""The Amity will have trouble enforcing that policy," says Marcus. "How do you stop conflict without conflict?”

“A sob racks my body again, and he wraps his arms around me so tightly I find it difficult to breathe, but it doesn't matter. My dignified weeping gives way to full-on ugliness, my mouth open and my face contorted and sounds like a dying animal coming from my throat. If this continues I will break apart, and maybe that would be better, maybe it would be better to shatter and bear nothing.”

“You may have succeeded in shutting down the attack simulation, girl, but it was by luck alone, not skill. I would die of shock if you managed to do anything useful again for a long time"This is the Marcus that Tobias knows. The one who knows right where to hit to cause the most damage.”

“This is bizarre," I say."I think it's beautiful," he says.I give him a look."What?" He laughs a little. "They each have an equal role in government; they each feel equally responsible. And it makes them care; it makes them kind. I think that's beautiful.”

“Grabbing hold of facts in the midst of shock is very Erudite of him.”

“I never used to understand why people bothered to hold hands as they walked, but then he runs one of his fingertips down my palm, and I shiver and understand it completely”