“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.”

“It's not all gone. She loved someone before and so did I. The Society and the Rising and the world are all still out there, pressing against us. But Lei holds them away. She's made enough space for two people to stand up together, whether or not any Society or Rising says that they can. She's done it before. The amazing thing is that she's not afraid to do it again. When we fall in love the first time, we don't know anything. We risk a lot less than we do if we choose to love again.There is something extraordinary about the first time falling.But if feels even better to find myself standing on solid ground, with someone holding on to me, pulling me back, and know that I'm doing the same for her.”

“For what is the point ofhaving something lovely if you never share it?It would be like having a poem, a beautiful wild poem that noone else has, and burning it.”

“There's a reason they didn't keep this poem. This poem tells you to fight.”

“Was [Sisyphus] from your province?'I don't know. I don't know if he's real,' Ky says. 'If he ever existed.''Then why tell his story?' I don't understand, and for a second I feel betrayed. Why did Ky tell me about this person and make me feel empathy for him when there's no proof that he ever lived at all?Ky pauses for a moment before he answers, ...'Even if he didn't live his story, enough of us have lived lives just like it. So it's true anyway.”

“Who am I to try to change things, to get greedy and want more? If our Society changes and things are different, who am I to tell the girl who would have enjoyed the safe protected life that now she has to have choice and danger because of me?”

“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.”