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."

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

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?)

--110--

"No factions? A world in which no one knows who they are or where they fit? I can't even fathom it. I imagine only chaos and isolation."

--155--

"The Candor sing the praises of the truth, but they never tell you how much it costs."

--157--

"I wonder how long Al stood at the ledge before he pitched himself over it, into the Dauntless pit.

He must have stood there for a long time, making a list of all the terrible things he had done--almost killing me was one of those things--and another list of all the good, heroic, brave things he had not done, and then decided that he was tired. Tired, not just of living, but of existing. Tired of being Al."

--168--

"I think it would be easier to fight in a dress. It would give your legs freer movement. And who really cares if you flash people your underwear, as long as you're kicking the crap out of them?"

--203--

"I can't even think of a word strong enough to describe him. Apparently I need to expand my vocabulary."

--283--

"By the time the fight dies down, my clothes are more paint-colored than black. I decide to keep the shirt to remind me why I chose Dauntless in the first place: not because they are perfect, but because they are alive. Because they are free."

--289--

"I try to think of something helpful to say. I'm not going to die--but I don't know that. We live in a dangerous world, and  am not so attached to life that I will do anything to survive. I can't reassure him."

--329--

"I used to think that cruelty required malice, but that is not true. Jeanine has no reason to act out of malice. But she is cruel because she doesn't care what she does, as long as it fascinates her. I may as well be a puzzle or a broken machine she wants to fix. She will break open my skull just to see the inner workings of my brain; I will die here, and that wil be the merciful thing."

--331-2--

"I am like Jeanine. And I can either despise it, attack it, eradicate it. . . or I can use it."

--332--

"When I was young, I thought that was like heaven would be like, all white light and nothing else. Now I know that can't be true, because white light is menacing."

--377--

"I knew by the way he looked at her that he held her in a higher regard than he held even himself. No selfishness or insecurity kept him from seeing the full extent of her goodness, as it so often does with the rest of us."

--?--

"Grief is not as heavy as guilt, but it takes more away from you."

--410--

"I feel, as I look at him, that I am finally seeing him as he is, instead of how he is in relation to me. So how well do I really know him, if I have not seen this before?"

--418--

""And while he has done cruel, evil things, our society is not divided into "good" and "Bad." Cruelty does not make a person dishonest, the same way bravery does not make a person kind. Marcus is not good or bad, but both."

--510--

"People, I have discovered, are layers and layers of secrets. You believe you know them, that you understand them, but their motives are always hidden from you, buried in their own hearts. You will never know them, but sometimes you decide to trust them."

Divergent by Veronica Roth

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."

A Brave New World by Alduous Huxley

---42---

"Stability. No civilization without social stability. No social stability without individual stability."

---49---

"Government'san affair of sitting, not hitting. You rule with the brains and the buttocks, never with the fists."

---64---

"Bernard gave his orders in the sharp, rather arrogant and even offensive tone of one who does not feel himself too secure in his superiority."

---65---

"The mockery made him feel like an outsider; and feeling like an outsider he behaved like one, which increased the contempt and hostility aroused by his physical defects. Which in turn increased his sense of being alien and alone. A chronic fear of being slighted made him avoid his equals, made him stand, where his inferiors were concerned, self conciously on his dignity."

---70---

Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly--they'll go through anything. You read and you're pierced."

---90---

"But I do. . . It makes me feels as though. . . as though I were more me, if you see what I mean. More on my own, not so completely a part of something else. Not just a cell in the social body. "

---148---

"Murder kills only the individual--and, after all, what is an individual?We can make a new one with the greatest ease-- as many as we like.  Unorthodoxy threatens more than the life of a mere individual; it strikes Society itself. "

---157---

"Success went fizzily to Bernard's head, and in the process completely reconciled him (as any good intoxicant should do) to a world which, up until then, he had found very unsatisfactory. In so far as it recognized him as important, the order of things was good."

---221---

"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand."

---222-3---

"Only an Epsilon can be expected to make Epsilon sacrifices, for the good reason that for him they aren't sacrifices; they're the line of least resistance. His conditioning has laid down rails along which he's got to run. He can't help himself; He's fordoomed. Even after decanting he's still inside a bottle--an invisible bottle of infantile and embryonic fixations. Each one of us, of course, goes through life inside a bottle. But if we happen to be Alphas, our bottles are, relatively speaking, enormous. We should suffer acutely if we were confined in a narrower space."

---223---

"The optimum population is modelled on the iceberg--eight-ninths below the water line, one-ninth above."

---228---

"One can't have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for. You're paying for it, Mr. Watson--paying because you happen to be too much interested in beauty. I was too much interested in truth; I paid too."

---233---

"Yes, we inevitably turn to God; for this religious sentiment is of its nature so pure, so delightful to the soul the experiences it, that it makes up to us for all our other losses."

---235-6---

"The gods are just. No doubt. But their code of law is dictated, in the last resort, by the people who organize society; Providence takes its cue from men."

Continuum (TV)

This is a fabulous economic/political satire. It's an action packed future meets cop drama with insane technology and unexpected plot twists. Do give it a try.

S2E3

Alec- "There's free will, Kiera. If you don't believe in that, then what are any of us doing?"

S2E9

Kiera- "Every monster starts off as someone's baby"

S3E2

Jason- "Don't catch a cold. That's what mothers say. Except you don't really catch a cold. 

A cold catches you. You're just standing there."

Unwind By Neal Shusterman (Unwind Series)

Note about the author: Neal Shusterman is a critically acclaimed author whose book "Unwind" is now commonly taught in schools. Although it is categorized as Young Adult fiction due to the writing style, I would suggest people of all ages read it. It is a blatant satire that does not even try to hide its alignments with our society (no worrying about the meaning behind the blue curtains, if you catch my drift). The best part of it is that it gets you thinking about issues in ways you may not have before. Take no detail for granted when reading this book. Even the seemingly insignificant details will come back as part of the big picture.

***Unwind***

"Stupid dreams. Even the good ones are bad, because they remind you how poorly reality measures up."

"I remember thinking, if a baby was going to be so unloved, why would God want it brought into the world?"
 
'"Hold this." She puts the baby in Connor's arms. It's the first time she's given it to him. It feels much lighter than he expected. Something so loud and demanding ought to be heavier.'

“In a perfect world mothers would all want their babies, and strangers would open up their homes to the unloved. In a perfect world everything would be either black or white, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn’t a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is.”
 
“One thing you’ve learned when you’ve lived as long as I have—people aren’t all good, and people aren’t all bad. We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives. Right now, I’m pleased to be in the light."
 
"Wherever his journey now takes him, it doesn't matter, because he has already arrived there in his heart. He's become like that briefcase in the ground - full of gems yet void of light, so nothing sparkles, nothing shines."
 
"You see, a conflict always begins with an issue - a difference of opinion, an argument. But by the time it turns into a war, the issue doesn't matter anymore, because now it's about one thing and one thing only: how much one side hates the other." Fav
 
“Which would be worse—to have tens of thousands of babies that no one wanted or to silently make them go away before they were even born?”
(There are just under half a million children in the US foster care system alone. Half of those [a quarter million] are waiting to be adopted. That's more than tens of thousands...)
 
“Amazing that the bullies and victims can now work together to bring misery to others.”
(referring to the government) 
 
“Who can say what goes through the mind of a clapper in the moments before carrying out that evil deed? No doubt whatever those thoughts are, they are lies. However, like all the dangerous deceptions, the lies that clappers tell themselves wear seductive disguises…”
(clapper is the term for suicide bomber in the book)

UnWholly By Neal Shusterman (Unwind Series)

Note about the author: Neal Shusterman is a critically acclaimed author whose book "Unwind" is now commonly taught in schools. Although it is categorized as Young Adult fiction due to the writing style, I would suggest people of all ages read it. It is a blatant satire that does not even try to hide its alignments with our society (no worrying about the meaning behind the blue curtains, if you catch my drift). 

***UnWholly***

'"Words don't hurt you." Which is one of the biggest criminal lies perpetrated by adults against children in this world. Because words hurt more than any physical pain.'

  

"We should call you the little mermaid. . . because they let you magically walk, in exchange for your voice."

  

"As for Pastor Dan, he's a hero to Lev for having the courage to lose his convictions without losing his faith."

  

"'So what religion are we?" . . . 

The question has become a running joke, and each time Pastor Dan has another answer.

"We're Pentupcostal because we're sick of all the hypocrisy."
"We're Clueish, because we finally got a clue."

"We're PresbyPterodactyl, because we're making this whole thing fly against all reason."'

  

"It made him feel both terribly uncomfortable and also a little bit blessed to be at the core of a spiritual movement, even if it was only a movement of two."

  

"I'm too old to rage against the system. I just whine at it."

  

'"Do you have any idea what you've put this family through? The shame? The ridicule?"

"Then maybe you shouldn't surround yourself with people as judgmental as you."

  

"How do you judge the brightness of a light when you're the source? A spotlight can never see the shadows it casts."

  

"'They call it 'deprogramming,' which is a polite term for undoing brainwashing with more brainwashing."

  

"There's a powerful surge against her soul, as relentless as the waves crashing below, reminding her that in time the strongest of mountains is eroded into the sea, and she doesn't know how much longer she can resist it, or even if she should."

  

"We'll talk again when you're over yourself."

  

"Stop apologizing for everything. Save it for your more important screwups." 

UnSouled By Neal Shusterman (Unwind Series)

Note about the author: Neal Shusterman is a critically acclaimed author whose book "Unwind" is now commonly taught in schools. Although it is categorized as Young Adult fiction due to the writing style, I would suggest people of all ages read it. It is a blatant satire that does not even try to hide its alignments with our society (no worrying about the meaning behind the blue curtains, if you catch my drift). 

***UnSouled***

"Who has been in their right mind for the past nine years?"
.

"Sitting feels like acceptance. It feels like admitting failure. Next he'll be lost in that armchair with a drink in his hands, swirling the ice to hear it clink, feeling the alcohol numbing him into submission. No, that's not him. It will never be him."
 .

"What did they expect when educational funding was diverted to the war? How could they not know public education would fail? With no schools, no jobs, and nothing but time on their hands, what did they think these kids would do other than make trouble?"
 .

'They see distrust all around them, and it makes them want to deliver their anger all the more. "How dare you distrust me?" their violence says. "You don't know me."'
 .

"When it comes to cities and suburbs, Connor has found that most are fairly identical–only the geography changes. Rural areas, however, vary greatly. Some small towns are places you'd want to come from and eventually go back to: warm, inviting communities that breathe out Americana the way rain forests breathe out oxygen. And then there are towns like Heartsdale, Kansas. This is the place where fun came to die."

"For many months before today, he had suffered on the streets. The things he had to do to survive were horrifying and demoralizing. They were dehumanizing to the point that there wasn't much left of him that felt remotely human anymore. He had surrendered to the shame of it, resigning himself to a marginal life on the seediest back streets of Sin City. "
 

Note from author: There is so much judgement against homeless people. I think it is important to acknowledge most do not choose it. It's not always laziness. Whether poverty, mental illness, addiction, or just having terrible families, you do not know the story of how a person ended up there. Remember: 20-40% of homeless youth are LGBT with nowhere to go. 

 .
'"Do I make myself clear?"

"Any clearer and you'd be invisible."'
 .

"Apparently he's made the right enemy, because now he has many, many friends."
 .

"She idly wonders which is crueler, man or nature. She determines it must be man. Nature has no remorse, but neither does it have malice. Plants take in the light of the sun and give off oxygen with the same life-affirming need that a tiger tears into a toddler. Or a scavenger devours a lowlife." 

 .

MORE TO COME
 .

Wicked Series by Gregory Maguire

***Wicked***

“Tis very strange men should be so fond of being thought wickeder than they are.” –Daniel Defoe, A System of Magick
  
“How deeply bound by the cords of family anger we all are. None of us breaks free.” 

***Son of a Witch***

"Under every roof, a story, just as behind every brow, a history."
   
"We are loping sequences of chemical conversions, acting ourselves converted. We are twists of genes acting ourselves twisted; we are wicks of burning neuroses acting ourselves wicked. And nothing to be done about it. And nothing to be done about it." Fav

   
"We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of us. Beautiful in the concept, if we're lucky, but frequently tedious or regrettable as we flesh ourselves out."

   

"She was nuts as a nut tree in a nut forest, of course: that was what he had thought without realizing he was thinking anything at all."
   
"She had had lots of power, in her own way, but she had no more motherly instinct than a berserk rhino."
   
"A hundred ways to duck the question: how will I live with myself now that I know what I know?"
   
"Make way, make way; hail hail, the prince of ale."
   
"'Few hungry farmers are willing to extend Birds that courtesy, so those of us who talk tend to congregate in areas less frequented by human scum. My apologies, that was crude of me.'

'Don't apologize too fast, you don't know me very well.'"