“Aren’t you afraid they’ll arrest you? (Shahara)I wasn’t a convict, Dagan. I was an illegally purchased slave. My owner has no legal claim on me. And I’m no longer a kid learning my powers. I’m a full-grown man with an ax I want to bury in the forehead of anyone dumb enough to come at me. I defy the bastards to try something now. (Nero)”

“I can wait in silence no longer, but I’m afraid I’m already too late. I am trapped between agony and hope—believing I have no right to speak, but knowing more how much I’d regret it if I did not. Tell me I’m not wrong. Tell me that, this time, you will accept my offer. Because I’m making it again. I want you with me, Elliot. It’s all I have ever wanted. I offer you everything I have—my world, my ship, my self—perhaps they will be enough to replace what I know you would be giving up if you came with me.”

“He turns toward me. I want to touch him, but I’m afraid of his bareness; afraid that he will make me bare too.‘Is this scaring you, Tris?’‘No,’ I croak. I clear my throat. ‘Not really. I’m only…afraid of what I want.’‘What do you want?’ Then his face tightens. ‘Me?’Slowly I nod.”

“Why now? Why not wait for a man to come along and…sweep you off your feet?”She gave a short laugh. “If the man you speak of had ever planned on coming, my lord, I’m afraid he has obviously lost his way. And, at twenty-eight, I find I have grown tired of waiting.”

“I’m here to right wrongs and I’m gonna do it, Angel. You told me I’d had my last chance but I don’t accept that and I won’t. If you tell me now that my explanation is not enough and you want me gone, I’m not goin’. I’m not giving up. I got one part of my life’s dream still open to me, very sign she gives me is screaming that she’s standing in my arms right now and I’m not gonna be ninety years old, looking back on my life and regretting that I gave up that dream.”

“I’m not a poet. But my wife is. She taught me to look for the extraordinary in the simplicity. She taught me about emotion, and truth, and second chances. You see, I never realized a person can keep giving everything with no thought to take. Alexa, you changed my life, but I was too afraid to reach for it. I believed I wasn’t good enough. Now I realize the truth.”