“Excellent! You almost look like a human being now!”

“I no longer feel any allegiance to these monsters called human beings, despise being one myself.”

“Still, I hate them. But, of course, I hate almost everybody now. Myself more than anyone.”

“I look down from the branch I'm perched on. The Careers look murderous. Now I smile.'How have things been with you?' I ask sweetly.”

“I guess there isn’t a rule book for what might be unacceptable to do to another human being.”

“Then it’s just Venia, whose skin is so pale her tattoos appear to be leaping off it. Almost rigid with determination, she does my hair and nails and makeup, fingers flying swiftly to compensate for her absent teammates. The whole time, she avoids my gaze. It’s only when Cinna shows up to approve me and dismiss her that she takes my hands, looks me straight in the eye, and says, “We would all like you to know what a…privilege it has been to make you look your best.” Then she hastens from the room.”

“It's like being home again, when they bring in the hopelessly mangled person from the mine explosion, or the woman in her third day of labor, or the famished child struggling against pneumonia and my mother and Prim, they wear that same look on their faces. Now is the times to run away tho the woods, to hide in the trees until the patient is long gone and in another part of the Seam the hammers make the coffin. But I'm held here both by the hovercraft walls and the same force that holds the loved ones of the dying. How often I've seen them, ringed around our kitchen table and I thought, Why don't they leave? Why do they stay to watch?And now I know. It's because you have no choice.”