“He smiled halfheartedly. Then he frowned. "But isn't it more dangerous than that? In all the stories, they say that it's too hard. . . they lose control. . . people die. . ”

“Those people who say it takes more muscles to frown than smile are in serious danger of having their pants catch on fire.”

“I can't argue that Finnick isn't one of the most stunning, sensuous people on the planet.But I can honestly say he's never been attractive to me. Maybe he's too pretty, or maybe he's too easy to get, or maybe it's really that he'd just betoo easy to lose.”

“He knew all the stories. His grandfather had given them to him when he sat between the old man’s knees as a child. It was a comfort, though, to hear them again. To call them to mind. All these stories that made him more than just a vintner and more than just a man who carried a spear whom other men were willing to follow. More than just a man who lay dying. The stories made him one of the People, who would never die.”

“Isn't it supposed to be like this?" He smiled. "The glory of first love, and all that. It's incredible, isn't it, the difference between reading about something, seeing it in the pictures, and experiencing it?""Very different," I agreed. "More forceful than I'd imagined.”

“…After all, each story is a Rorschach Test, isn't it? And if people find beasties and bedbugs in my ink-splotches, I cannot prevent it, can I? They will insist on seeing them, anyway, and that is their privilege. Still, I wish people, quasi-intellectuals, did not try so hard to find the man under the old maid's bed. More often than not, as we know, he simply isn't there.”