Allegiant by Veronica Roth (Divergent series)

Notes from the reader: replace the concept of "factions" from the book with any label you may have put on yourself to help find like-minded people to fully understand what the author is saying. We all have our factions, even if they're chosen rather than forced upon us. (E.g.: nerd, jock... stoner?)

--13--

"From one tyrant to another. That is the world we know now."

--13--

'"I brought you the truth about our city and the reason we are in it. If you aren't thanking me for it, you should at least do something about it instead of sitting here on this mess you made, pretending it's a throne!"'

--67--

"I have never had parents who set good examples, parents whose expectations were worth living up to, but she did. I can see them within her, the courage and the beauty they pressed into her like a handprint."

--71--

"What do I need, to overcome my fears? 

I know the answer, of course I do: I need to deny them the power to control me. I need to know that I am stronger than they are."

--91--

"I wonder if that fear still creeps up on her now, though she worked so hard to face it--I wonder if fears ever really go away or if they just lose their power over us."

--95--

"Tobias can take care of himself, but in an attack, surviving is an accident. It doesn't take skill to stand in a place where no bullets find you, or to fire into the dark and hit a man you didn't see. It is all luck, or providence, depending on what you believe."

--125--

"They created us, they shaped our world, they told us what to believe.

If they told us what to believe and we didn't come to it on our own, is it still true?"

--134--

"I needed that word to tell me who I was when everything else was coming apart around me. But now I'm wondering if I need it anymore, if we ever really need these words, "Dauntless," "Erudite," "Divergent," "Allegiant," or if we can just be friends or lovers or siblings, defined instead by the choices we make and the love and loyalty that binds us."

--192--

"Or maybe we'll make a home somewhere inside ourselves, to carry with us wherever we go--which is the way I carry my mother now."

--219--

'"It's a little rudimentary, but this book helped to teach me what it is to be human. . . To be such a complicated, mysterious piece of biological machinery, and more amazing still, to have the capacity to analyze that machinery! That is a special thing, unprecedented in all of evolutionary history. Our ability to know about ourselves and the world is what makes us human."'

--262--

"I was so used to lying instead of telling difficult truths that I welcomed the chance to deceive her."

--271--

'"I never said this was all I was ever going to do. It's not always wise to strike as hard as you can at the first opportunity. This is a long race, not a sprint."'

--276--

'"I was beginning to feel that I had finally found a place to stay, a place that was not so unstable or corrupt or controlling that I could actually belong there. You would think that I would have learned by now--such a place does not exist."'

--278--

"I sit on top of the sweater and examine my knuckles. A few of them are split from punching Caleb, and dotted with faint bruises. It seems fitting that the blow would leave a mark on both of us. That's how the world works."

--315--

"My father has a way of persuading people without charm that has always confused me. He states his opinions as if they're facts, and somehow his complete lack of doubt makes you believe him."

--316--

"It seems like the rebellions never stop, in the city, in the compound, anywhere. There are just breaths between them, and foolishly, we call those breaths "peace."'

--345-6--

"Evelyn tried to control  people by controlling weapons, but Jeanine was more ambitious--she knew that when you control information, or manipulate it, you don't need force to keep people under your thumb. They stay there willingly."

--371--

'"If we stay together, I'll have to forgive you over and over again, and if you're still in this, you'll have to forgive me over and over again too. . . So forgiveness isn't the point. What I really should have been trying to figure out is whether we were still good for each other or not."'

--371-2--

"Then I thought of how strong I have become, how secure I feel with the person I now am, and how all along the way he has told me that I am brave, I am respected, I am loved and worth loving."

--372--

"I used to think that when people fell in love, they just landed where they landed, and they had no choice in the matter afterward. And maybe that's true of beginnings, but it's not true of this, now.

I fell in love with him. But I don't stay with him by default as if there's no one else available to me. I stay with him because I choose to, every day that I wake up, every day that we fight or lie to each other or disappoint each other. I choose him over and over again, and he chooses me."