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?)
--43--
"In our factions, we find meaning, we find purpose, we find life. . . More than family, our factions are where we belong. . . Apart from them, we would not survive."
--45--
"His absence will haunt their hallways, and he will be a space they can't fill. And then time will pass, and the hole will be gone, like when an organ is removed and the body's fluids flow into the space it leaves. Humans can't tolerate emptiness for long."
--57--
"I am proud. It will get me into trouble someday, but today it makes me brave."
--60--
"A new place, a new name. I can be remade here."
--69--
"He stares at me, and I don't look away. He isn't a dog, but the same rules apply. Looking away is submissive. Looking him in the eye is a challenge. It's my choice."
--75--
"Maybe my problem isn't that I can't go home. I will miss my mother and father and Caleb and evening firelight and he clack of my mother's knitting needles, but that is not the onlu reason for this hollow feeling in my stomach.
My problem might be that even if I did go home, I wouldn't belong there."
--79--
"I lower the gun. There is power in controlling something that can do so much damage--in controlling something, period."
--81--
"Those who seek peace above all else, they say, will always deceive to keep the water calm."
--87--
"It will be difficult to break the habits of thinking Abnegation instilled in me, like tugging a single thread from a complex work of embroidery. But I will find new habits, new thoughts, new rules. I will become something else."
--94--
"I like to think I'm helping them by hating them. . . I'm reminding them that they aren't God's gift to humankind."
--97--
"Leaving us with Eric is like hiring a babysitter who spends his free time sharpening his knives."
--117--
"I clench my teeth as the tears come. I am fed up. I am fed up with tears and weakness. But there isn't much I can do to stop them."
--128--
"Besides, Robert. The goal of my life isn't just. . . to be happy."
"Wouldn't it be easier if it was though?"
--176--
"If Eric thinks I did something right, I must have done it wrong."
--205--
"Sometimes crying or laughing are the only options left, and laughing just feels better right now."
--219--
"Still, there is a part of me that groans, I have to wait for seven people? It is a strange blend of terror and eageress, unfamiliar until now."
--221--
"My heart beats so hard it hurts, and I can't scream and I can't breathe, but I also feel everything, every vein and every fiber, every bone and every nerve, all awake and buzzing in my body as if chared with electricity. I am pure adrenaline."
--239--
'"So they don't go away?"
"Sometimes they do. And sometimes new fears replace them. . . But becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to be free from it, that's the point."
I nod. I used to think the Dauntless were fearless. That is how they seemed, anyway. But maybe what I saw as fearless was actually fear under control.'
--294--
"But my mother would tell me that people are flawed and I should be lenient with them."
--299-300--
"Somewhere inside me is a merciful, forgiving person. Somewhere there is a girl who tries to understand what people are going through, who accepts that pepole do evil things and that desperation leads them to darker places than they ever imagined. I swear she exists, and she hurts for the repentant boy I see in front of me.
But if I saw her, I wouldn't recognize her."
--311--
"I fear his shifting moods. They show me somehing unstable inside of him, and instability is dangerous."
--312--
"Intentions are the only thing they care about. They try to make you think they care about what you do, but they don't. They don't want you to act a certain way. They want you to think a certain way. So you're easy to understand. So you won't pose a threat to them."
--313-4--
"Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up. I've seen it. It's fascinating. . . Sometimes I just. . . want to see it again. Want to see you awake."
--336--
"I have a theory that selflessness and bravery aren't all that different. All your life you've been training to forget yourself, so when you're in danger, it becomes your first instinct."
--441-2--
"Every faction conditions its members to think and act a certain way. And most people do it. For most people, it's not hard to learn, to find a pattern of thought that works and stay that way. . . But our minds move in a dozen different directions. We can't be confined to one way of thinking and that terrifies our leaders. It means we can't be controlled. And it means that no matter what they do, we will always cause trouble for them."
--484--
"The cruelty of fate is that I must travel with the people I hate when the people I love are dead behind me."
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