“We can't be friends. That never works. I'd have to be all careful and brave and pathetic, you'd feel guilty all the time and you'd start being nice in weird fake ways to make up for it.' She was starting to cry, but she felt free, she felt relieved as you can only feel when you have wrecked yourself on the rocks and don't have to worry about navigating anymore.”

“It's not the letter she imagined she would write, but once you start, all the other letters you've ever written in your life have a way of creeping in.”

“Having him hold me like that was the only good thing out of it all, having him hold me and being right there with me. I just wished he could have held me harder and tighter and made the bad feelings, the dirty feelings, go away. But I don't think you can hold a person that tight, so tight that she's in your heart, way inside your skin, being cleaned and warmed by your blood. (11)”

“Imagine that. You just can't let your entire life go by worrying about your damned thighs. You'd never find happiness.”

“She was pulling a rope out of the water and knew it was coming to the end when the barnacles started to appear and they became more think and clustered. Then it was strangely peaceful and the sound was turned off. She stood at the bow of a ship. If only she could have stood this way above the water and really breathed and let the waves go by like pages being turned and watched everything more closely and chosen things more carefully then she might have been able to read the spirit within herself and would not have spent her life as if she were only halfway in it.For a moment she felt an astonishing brilliance and heat and light and all of herself flared up and the vibration after sixty-five years was not weakened by time but more dense then suddenly it was as if the flame had caught the flimsiest piece of paper for it flickered up and flew into the air then quickly sank down withered into a thin cinder of ash which blew off, inconsequential. Her life had not been long enough for her to know the whole of herself, it had not been long enough or wide.”

“She felt herself needing more and more sleep. When she awoke in the morning, she thought of when she might lie down again - and when she would sleep. She started going to the movies.”

“No problem," Gale replies. "I wake up ten times a night anyway.""To make sure Katniss is still here?" asks Peeta."Something like that,"..."That was funny, what Tigris said. About no one knowing what to do with her.""Well, WE never have,"..."She loves you, you know," says Peeta. "She as good as told me after they whipped you.""Don't believe it,"Gale answers. "The way she kissed you in the Quarter Quell...well she never kissed me like that.""It was just part of the show," Peeta tells him, although there's an edge of doubt in his voice."No, you won her over. Gave up everything for her. Maybe that's the only way to convince her you love her." There's a long pause. "I should have volunteered to take your place in the first Games. Protected her then.""You couldn't," says Peeta. "She'd never have forgiven you. You had to take care of her family. They matter more to her than her life."..."I wonder how she'll make up her mind.""Oh, that I do know." I can just catch Gale's last words through the layer of fur. "Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can't survive without”