Young adult fiction

"Gewiss, du hast recht, Bester, der Schmerzen wären minder unter den Menschen, wenn sie nicht - Gott weiss, warum sie so gemacht sind - mit so viel Emsigkeit der Einbildungskraft sich beschäftigten, die Erinnerungen des vergangenen Übels zurückzurufen, eher als eine gleichgültige Gegenwart zu ertragen."

"Und ich habe, mein Lieber, wieder bei diesem kleinen Geschäft gefunden, dass Missverständnisse und Trägheit vielleicht mehr Irrungen in der Welt machen als List und Bosheit. Wenigstens sind die beiden letzteren gewiss seltener."

"[...] dann sehne ich mich oft und denke : ach könntest du das wieder ausdrücken, könntest du dem Papiere das einhauchen, was so voll, so warm in dir lebt, daß es würde der Spiegel deiner Seele, wie deine Seele ist der Spiegel des unendlichen Gottes!"

"Ich weiß wohl, daß wir nicht gleich sind noch sein können; aber ich halte dafür, daß der, der nötig zu haben glaubt, vom sogenannten Pöbel sich zu entfernen, um den Respekt zu erhalten, ebenso tadelhaft ist als ein Feiger, der sich vor seinem Feinde verbirgt, weil er zu unterliegen fürchtet."

"Wenn du fragst, wie die Leute hier sind, muß ich dir sagen: wie überall!"

"Es ist ein einförmiges Ding um das Menschengeschlecht. Die meisten verarbeiten den größten Teil der Zeit, um zu leben, und das bisschen, das ihnen von Freiheit übrig bleibt, ängstigt sie so, dass sie alle Mittel aufsuchen, um es los zu werden."

"Ich habe das Herz gefühlt, die große Seele, in deren Gegenwart ich mir schien mehr zu sein, als ich war, weil ich alles war, was ich sein konnte."

"Daß die Kinder nicht wissen, warum sie wollen, darin sind alle hochgelahrten Schul- und Hofmeister einig; daß aber auch Erwachsene gleich Kindern auf diesem Erdboden herumtaumeln und wie jene nicht wissen, woher sie kommen und wohin sie gehen, ebensowenig nach wahren Zwecken handeln, ebenso durch Biskuit und Kuchen und Birkenreiser regiert werden: das will niemand gern glauben, und mich dünkt, man kann es mit Händen greifen."

"I am indeed but a wanderer, a pilgrim on earth. But are you anything more?"

"Ein Mensch, der um anderer willen, ohne dass es seine eigene Leidenschaft, sein eigenes Bedürfnis ist, sich um Geld oder Ehre oder sonst etwas abarbeitet, ist immer ein Tor."

"Ich bin mehr als einmal trunken gewesen, meine Leidenschaften waren nie weit vom Wahnsinn, und beides reut mich nicht: denn ich habe in meinem Maße begreifen lernen, wie man alle außerordentlichen Menschen, die etwas Großes, etwas Unmöglichscheinendes wirkten, von jeher für Trunkene und Wahnsinnige ausschreien musste."

"Lieber Freund, wenn nur das Kleinod nicht eben so zerbrechlich wäre, als es schön und kostbar ist."

"Don’t know whether it's history or poetry. It is all very natural, and has a way of drawing the tears from one's head right movingly. Well, love is a strange thing! It will not be played with like a bird. I know it, how it goes through body and life, and beats and rages in every vein, and plays tricks with the head and reason. Poor Werther! He had else such fine conceits and thoughts. Had he but taken a journey to Paris or to Pekin! But no! He would not leave the fire and the spit, and went round and round it till he went to pieces. And there's the misery, that one can have such talents and gifts, and yet be so weak. Therefore they ought to make a turf-seat by his grave under the Linden-tree by the church-yard wall, that one might sit down upon it and lay his head in his hand, and weep over human weakness. But when thou hast finished weeping, good gentle youth! when thou hast finished weeping, lift up thy head with joy, and place thy hand against thy side! For there is such a thing as Virtue. That too goes through body and life, and beats and rages in every vein. She is said not to be attainable without much earnestness and conflict, and therefore not to be much known or loved. But he who has her has a rich reward in sunshine and frost and rain, and when Friend Hain comes with his scythe."

"“The essence of training is to allow error without consequence.”"

""“Because never in my entire childhood did I feel like a child. I felt like a person all along--the same person that I am today. I never felt that I spoke childishly. I never felt that my emotions and desires were somehow less real than adult emotions and desires.”"

""That monitor is going to come out today. We're going to take it right out, and it won't hurt a bit." Ender nodded. It was a lie, of course, that it wouldn't hurt a bit. But since adults always said it when it was going to hurt, he could count on that statement as an accurate prediction of the future. Sometimes lies were more dependable than the truth."

"For a moment, the others backed away and Stilson lay motionless. They were all wondering if he was dead. Ender, however, was trying to figure out a way to forestall vengeance. To keep them from taking him in a pack tomorrow. I have to win this now, and for all time, or I'll fight it every day and it will get worse and worse."

"I'll lie to him." "And if that doesn't work?" "Then I'll tell the truth. We're allowed to do that, in emergencies. We can't plan for everything, you know."

"Ender didn't like fighting. He didn't like Peter's kind, the strong against the weak, and he didn't like his own kind either, the smart against the stupid."

"He toyed with the idea of trying to be like the other boys. But he couldn't think of any jokes, and none of theirs seemed funny. Wherever their laughter came from, Ender couldn't find such a place in himself. He was afraid, and fear made him serious."

"“It isn't the world at stake, Ender. Just us. Just humankind. As far as the rest of the earth is concerned, we could be wiped out and it would adjust, it would get on with the next step in evolution. But humanity doesn't want to die. As a species, we have evolved to survive.""

"As a species, we have evolved to survive. And the way we do that is by straining and straining and, at last, every few generations, giving birth to genius."

"Human beings are free except when humanity needs them."

"He could see Bonzo's anger growing hot. Hot anger was bad. Ender's anger was cold, and he could use it. Bonzo's was hot, and so it used him."

"So he believed. Believed, but the seed of doubt was there, and it stayed, and every now and then sent out a little root. It changed everything, to have that seed growing. It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise."

"The world is always a democracy in times of flux, and the man with the best voice will win. Everybody thinks Hitler got to power because of his armies, because they were willing to kill, and that's partly true, because in the real world power is always built on the threat of death and dishonor. But mostly he got to power on words, on the right words at the right time."

"Remember - the enemy's gate is down."

"There was no doubt now in Ender's mind. There was no help for him. Whatever he faced, now and forever, no one would save him from it. Peter might be scum, but Peter had been right, always right; the power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can't kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and no one will ever save you."

"Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be."

"In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them... I destroy them. -" "You beat them." For a moment she was not afraid of his understanding. "No, you don't understand. I destroy them. I make it impossible for them to ever hurt me again. I grind them and grind them until they don't exist."

"Human beings didn't evolve brains in order to lie around on lakes. Killing's the first thing we learned. And a good thing we did, or we'd be dead, and the tigers would own the earth."

"If one of us has to be destroyed, let's make damn sure we're the ones alive at the end. Our genes won't let us decide any other way. Nature can't evolve a species that hasn't a will to survive. Individuals might be bred to sacrifice themselves, but the race as a whole can never decide to cease to exist."

"He had long since learned that when something unusual was going on, something that was part of someone else's plan and not his own, he would find out more information by waiting than by asking. Adults almost always lost their patience before Ender did."

"All right," Ender gasped. "You win." The man's knee thrust painfully downward. "Since when," ask the man, his voice soft and rasping, "do you have to tell the enemy when he has won?"

"I am your enemy, the first one you've ever had who was smarter than you. There is no teacher but the enemy. No one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you. I am your enemy from now on. From now I am your teacher."

"Remember, boy. From now on the enemy is more clever than you. From now on the enemy is stronger than you. From now on you are always about to lose." The old man's face grew serious again. "You will be about to lose, Ender, but you will win. You will learn to defeat the enemy. He will teach you how."

"Reverse colonial sci-fi don't always have to be anti-imperialist, though. Ender's Game, both film and book, use the invasion of the superior aliens not as a critique of Western expansion and genocide, but as an excuse for those things. The bugs invade human worlds, and the consequence is that the humans must utterly annihilate the alien enemy, even if Ender feels kind of bad about it."

"What works with Ender's Game is Ender's community-building. There's a disparate group of kids who could be rivals, and he's able to bind them together through his personal service to them, through his loyalty, his trustworthiness. They know he'll never waste them, that he's not exploiting them for his own gain. I certainly was not conscious of it as I was writing him—I'm not much of a follower, and I'm not a good team player—and yet I created the kind of guy that I would follow."

"As it's written, Ender's Game is adaptable. The book takes place entirely inside Ender's head. If you don't know what Ender is thinking, he's just an incredibly violent little kid and not terribly interesting. You have to find ways to externalize what he's thinking. But he can't be the kind of person who explains himself to other people. That would weaken him."

"Le Guin first mentions the Ansible in her novel Rocannon’s World, published in 1966, and the invention of the device itself was a central motif to her 1974 novel, The Dispossessed. The main character of that novel was the inventor. Card, either through laziness or lack of imagination, appropriated Le Guin’s device full-bore and for reasons that have escaped me over the last thirty odd years, is that no one’s complained or cried foul. Indeed, other writers since then have also used the Ansible for their FTL communication needs. If Card had stolen a tune from a song and incorporated it in a song of his own (and consequently made a boat-load of money) without sharing the credit with the original songwriter, he’d have his ass handed to him in a sling in court. This is what happened to M.C. Hammer when he stole a famous riff from Rick James in 1990 for his song, “U Can’t Touch This”. The riff that made the song a world-wide hit (and made Hammer’s career) came from the creative mind of Rick James and it was only after a lengthy court battle did James end up sharing credit for Mr. Hammer’s song. Did Hammer say in court that it was a homage to Rick James? No. Did he say that everyone steals from everyone else in the music business and that it’s no big deal? No."

"That Ender could be tricked into believing a real battle scenario was a game-like video simulation is one of the most believable post-modern twists in modern science fiction, particularly considering how often the difference between our digital and "real" lives is debated and conflated. Ender becomes a "hero" in a supposed video game, something that embodies and magnifies fears about video games, both in 1985 when the book was published and today."

"Sure, people get new jobs, or go to different schools, or grow in prestige. But at no point over the course of the novel do we see a demonstrable growth or change in any of the characters, despite the fact that Ender ages from six to roughly eleven. I'm willing to grant Card the "exceedingly young hero" just because every science fiction novel geared toward young adults — and many that aren't — runs into this problem. But to see no demonstrable character growth just sort of removes the stakes from it. Card in many ways suffers from the same problem that Asimov faced in some of his great novels, the fact that he had a rocking plot concept but his characters were two-dimensional cardboard cutouts just going through the motions to make that awesome plot happen."

"Ender gets to strike out at his enemies and still remain morally clean. Nothing is his fault."

"I don't know of any pair of novels that have been as consistently misinterpreted as Card's Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. Even a reader with a rudimentary knowledge of twentieth century history might be expected to guess that the character of Ender Wiggin, the near messianic superhero, is based on that of Adolf Hitler. Card himself is the "Speaker for the Dead" who seeks to understand and forgive the genocidal dictator's behavior by demonstrating that his intentions were good. Because Hitler/Ender committed genocide to preserve the existence and dignity of what he defined as human, he is not a monster but a true Superman who willingly shouldered the heavy responsibility thrust upon him."

"For the reader who isn't convinced that writing a book (no matter how highly acclaimed) makes up for exterminating a race, Card offers an alternative, albeit rather contradictory, excuse for his genocide's actions -- genetic determinism. Although this "science" has been shown to represent such an oversimplification that it's a downright distortion, Card makes it the foundation of the biology of his universe. From the very beginning, authorities can breed geniuses more easily than you or I could establish a strain of purebred blue budgies, and never mind that breeding for color and size involves at most a few genes, while breeding for intelligence would require a total understanding of the complicated interactions between whole chromosomes. In Card's strange world, children can inherit advanced qualities like a talent for xenobiology -- a bizarre combination of genetic determinism and Lamarckianism since these characteristics were presumably artificially acquired at some point in the past. (Or does Card imagine that there is literally a gene for xenobiological talent that we can breed for? How could such a thing evolve? Surely our genes would have to be macroscopic to carry all the information he assumes they do.) In any case, his pseudo-science serves primarily as an excuse for ugly actions running the gamut from genocide to vivisection."

"In Ender's Game, the Nebula Award-winning 1985 novel by Orson Scott Card, a 6-year-old boy is taken from his family on Earth to an orbital military academy to be molded into a soldier for a looming extraterrestrial war. For Ender, a misfit genius among some of the world's scariest adolescent prodigies, surviving the other cadets is a violent affair in itself—from maiming fellow students in the shower to orchestrating zero-gravity battles."

"One doesn’t need Freud to work out why Card’s novel is popular. “Ender’s Game” tells the story of an infant prodigy, Andrew Wiggin (nicknamed Ender), who is torn from the bosom of his family at 6 to be trained in “Battle School.” Earth is under threat from aliens -- the Buggers. Future war is waged as a computer game. And who are the virtuosos of the game console? Kids. Who are the best de-Buggers? Not Donald Rumsfeld’s generation."

"I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn't try to sleep with people even if they could have. I need to know that these people exist."

"So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be."

"Bridget who is crazy said that sometimes she thought about suicide when commercials come on during TV. She was sincere and this puzzled the guidance counselors."

"Some kids look at me strange in the hallways because I don't decorate my locker, and I'm the one who beat up Sean and couldn't stop crying after he did it. I guess I'm pretty emotional."

"I look at people holding hands in the hallways, and I try to think about how it all works. At the school dances, I sit in the background, and I tap my toe, and I wonder how many couples will dance to 'their song.' In the hallways, I see the girls wearing the guys’ jackets, and I think about the idea of property. And I wonder if anyone is really happy. I hope they are. I really hope they are."

"Do you always think this much, Charlie?" "Is that bad?" I just wanted someone to tell me the truth. "Not necessarily. It's just that sometimes people use thought to not participate in life." "Is that bad?" "Yes."

"“Charlie, we accept the love we think we deserve.”"

"I hate you." My sister said it different than she did to my dad. She meant it with me. She really did. "I love you," was all I could say in return. "You're a freak, you know that? You’ve always been a freak. Everyone says so. They always have." "I'm trying not to be."

"Then, I turned around and walked to my room and closed my door and put my head under my pillow and let the quiet put things where they are supposed to be."

"“Not everyone has a sob story, Charlie, and even if they do, it's no excuse.”"

"When the police came, they found my brother asleep on the roof. Nobody knows how he got there."

"“I feel infinite.”"

"I have since bought the record, and I would tell you what it was, but truthfully, it's not the same unless you're driving to your first real party, and you're sitting in the middle seat of a pickup with two nice people when it starts to rain."

"Bob started passing around food. "Would you like a brownie?" "Yes. Thank you." …I ate the brownie, and it tasted a little weird, but it was still a brownie, so I still liked it. But this was not an ordinary brownie. Since you are older, I think you know what kind of brownie it was."

"You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand. You're a wallflower."

"And in that moment, I swear we were infinite."

"Patrick actually used to be popular before Sam bought him some good music."

"I have decided that maybe I want to write when I grow up. I just don't know what I would write."

"I just think it's bad when a boy looks at a girl and thinks that the way he sees her is better than she actually is. And I think it's bad when the most honest way a boy can look at a girl is through a camera."

"I guess I could tell people about Punk Rocky and walking home from school and things like that. Maybe these are my glory days, and I'm not even realizing it because they don't involve a ball."

"This moment will just be another story someday."

"I am very interested and fascinated by how everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other."

"I hope it's the kind of second side that he can listen to whenever he drives alone and feel like he belongs to something whenever he's sad. I hope it can be that for him."

"I really think that everyone should have watercolors, magnetic poetry, and a harmonica."

"Sam and Patrick looked at me. And I looked at them. And I think they knew. Not anything specific really. They just knew. And I think that's all you can ever ask from a friend."

"I think it was the first time in my life I ever felt like I looked "good". Do you know what I mean? That nice feeling when you look in the mirror, and your hair's right for the first time in your life? I don't think we should base so much on weight, muscles, and a good hair day, but when it happens, it's nice. It really is."

"After that, I couldn't believe that Sam actually got me a present because I honestly thought that the "I love you" was it."

"And I closed my eyes because I wanted to know nothing but her arms."

"And Sam looked at the paper and then she looked at me. "Charlie. . . Have you ever kissed a girl?" I shook my head no. It was so quiet. "Not even when you were little?" I shook my head no again. And she looked very sad. She told me about the first time she was kissed. She told me that it was with one of her dad's friends. She was seven. And she told nobody except Mary Elizabeth and then Patrick a year ago. And she started to cry. And she said something that I won't forget. Ever. "I know that you know that I like Craig. And I know that I told you not to think of me that way. And I know that we can't be together like that. But I want to forget all those things for a minute. Okay?" "Okay" "I want to make sure that the first person you kiss loves you. Okay?" "Okay" She was crying harder now. And I was, too, because when I hear something like that I just can't help it. "I just want to make sure of that. Okay?" "Okay" And she kissed me. And it was the kind of kiss that I could never tell my friends about out loud. It was the kind of kiss that made me know that I was never so happy in my whole life."

"Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines he wrote a poem And he called it "Chops" because that was the name of his dog And that's what it was all about And his teacher gave him an A and a gold star And his mother hung it on the kitchen door and read it to his aunts That was the year Father Tracy took all the kids to the zoo And he let them sing on the bus And his little sister was born with tiny toenails and no hair And his mother and father kissed a lot And the girl around the corner sent him a Valentine signed with a row of X's and he had to ask his father what the X's meant And his father always tucked him in bed at night And was always there to do it"

"Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines he wrote a poem And he called it "Autumn" because that was the name of the season And that's what it was all about And his teacher gave him an A and asked him to write more clearly And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because of its new paint And the kids told him that Father Tracy smoked cigars And left butts on the pews And sometimes they would burn holes That was the year his sister got glasses with thick lenses and black frames And the girl around the corner laughed when he asked her to go see Santa Claus And the kids told him why his mother and father kissed a lot And his father never tucked him in bed at night And his father got mad when he cried for him to do it."

"Once on a paper torn from his notebook he wrote a poem And he called it "Innocence: A Question" because that was the question about his girl And that's what it was all about And his professor gave him an A and a strange steady look And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because he never showed her That was the year that Father Tracy died And he forgot how the end of the Apostle's Creed went And he caught his sister making out on the back porch And his mother and father never kissed or even talked And the girl around the corner wore too much makeup That made him cough when he kissed her but he kissed her anyway because that was the thing to do And at three a.m. he tucked himself into bed his father snoring soundly"

"That's why on the back of a brown paper bag he tried another poem And he called it "Absolutely Nothing" Because that's what it was really all about And he gave himself an A and a slash on each damned wrist And he hung it on the bathroom door because this time he didn't think he could reach the kitchen."

"I walked over to the hill where we used to go and sled. There were a lot of little kids there. I watched them flying. Doing jumps and having races. And I thought that all those little kids are going to grow up someday. And all of those little kids are going to do the things that we do. And they will all kiss someone someday. But for now, sledding is enough. I think it would be great if sledding were always enough, but it isn't."

"It's kind of like when you look at yourself in the mirror and you say your name. And it gets to a point where none of it seems real. Well, sometimes, I can do that, but I don't need an hour in front of a mirror. It just happens very fast, and things start to slip away. And I just open my eyes, and I see nothing. And then I start to breathe really hard trying to see something, but I can't. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, it scares me."

""But there's another difference between you and her. You see... Kelly believes in women's rights so much that she would never let a guy hit her. I guess I can't say that about you." I swear to God, we almost died."

"Little kids talk about the strangest things. They really do."

"I laid down on his old bed, and I looked through the window at this tree that was probably a lot shorter when my dad looked at it. And I could feel what he felt on the night when he realized that if he didn't leave, it would never be his life. It would be theirs. At least that's how he's put it."

"Despite everything my mom and doctor and dad have said to me about blame, I can't stop thinking what I know. And I know that my aunt Helen would still be alive today if she just bought me one present like everyone else. She would be alive if I was born on a day that didn't snow. I would do anything to make this go away. I miss her terribly. I have to stop writing now because I feel too sad."

"I even made her a mix tape and left it at the grave. I hope you do not think that makes me weird."

"I don't know if you've ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. That's why I'm trying not to think. I just want it all to stop spinning."

"Everyone else is either asleep or having sex. I've been watching cable television and eating jello."

"Sometimes, I look outside, and I think that a lot of other people have seen this snow before. Just like I think that a lot of other people have read those books before. And listened to those songs. I wonder how they feel tonight."

"So, I looked up and we were in this giant dome like a glass snowball, and Mark said that the amazing white stars were really only holes in the black glass of the dome, and when you went to heaven, the glass broke away, and there was nothing but a whole sheet of star white, which is brighter than anything but doesn't hurt your eyes. It was vast and open and thinly quiet, and I felt so small."

"And all the books you’ve read have been read by other people. And all the songs you’ve loved have been heard by other people. And that girl that’s pretty to you is pretty to other people. And you know that if you looked at these facts when you were happy, you would feel great because you are describing “unity”. It’s like when you are excited about a girl and you see a couple holding hands, and you feel so happy for them. And other times you see the same couple, and they make you so mad. And all you want is to always feel happy for them because you know that if you do, then it means you’re happy, too. I just remembered what made me think of all this. I’m going to write it down because maybe if I do I won’t have to think about it. And I won’t get upset. But the thing is that I can hear Sam and Craig having sex, and for the first time in my life, I understand the end of that poem. And I never wanted to. You have to believe me. Love Always, Charlie."

"And my mind played hopscotch. My brother... football... Brad... Dave and his girlfriend in my room... the coats... the cold... the winter... "Autumn Leaves"... don't tell anyone... you pervert... Sam and Craig... Sam... Christmas... typewriter... gift... Aunt Helen... and the trees kept moving... they just wouldn't stop moving... so I laid down and made a snow angel. The policemen found me pale blue and asleep."

"Everything can't be low self-esteem, can it?"

"It's too bad you're not gay.” That made me stop crying a little bit. “ Then again, if you were gay, I would never date you. You're a mess." That made me start laughing a little bit. … "You know, Patrick? If I were gay, I'd want to date you." "Of course."

"I just wish that God or my parents or Sam or my sister or someone would just tell me what's wrong with me. Just tell me how to be different in a way that makes sense. To make this all go away. And disappear. I know that's wrong because it's my responsibility, and I know that things get worse before they get better because that's what my psychiatrist says, but this is a worse that feels too big."

"I walk around the school hallways and look at the people. I look at the teachers and wonder why they're here. If they like their jobs. Or us. And I wonder how smart they were when they were fifteen. Not in a mean way. In a curious way. It's like looking at all the students and wondering who's had their heart broken that day, and how they are able to cope with having three quizzes and a book report due on top of that. Or wondering who did the heart breaking. And wondering why."

"I don’t know how much longer I can keep going without a friend. I used to be able to do it very easily, but that was before I knew what having a friend was like. It’s much easier not to know things sometimes. And to have French fries with your mom be enough."

"But because things change. And friends leave. And life doesn’t stop for anybody."

"I remember going to sleep last night, and I realized something. Something that I think is important. I realized that throughout the course of the evening, I wasn't happy about Craig and Sam breaking up. Not at all. I never once thought that it would mean Sam might start liking me. All I cared about was the fact that Sam got really hurt. And I guess I realized at that moment that I really did love her. Because there was nothing to gain, and that didn't matter."

"And I guess I realized at that moment that I really did love her. Because there was nothing to gain, and that didn't matter"

"There’s something about that tunnel that leads to downtown. It’s glorious at night. Just glorious. You start on one side of the mountain, and it’s dark, and the radio is loud. As you enter the tunnel, the wind gets sucked away, and you squint from the lights overhead. When you adjust to the lights, you can see the other side in the distance just as the sound of the radio fades because the waves just can’t reach. Then, you’re in the middle of the tunnel, and everything becomes a calm dream. As you see the opening get closer, you just can’t get there fast enough. And finally, just when you think you’ll never get there, you see the opening right in front of you. And the radio comes back even louder than you remember it. And the wind is waiting. And you fly out of the tunnel onto the bridge. And there it is. The city. A million lights and buildings and everything seems as exciting as the first time you saw it. It really is a grand entrance."

"And we kept dancing. It was the one time all day that I really wanted the clock to stop. And just be there for a long time."

"I remembered this one time that I never told anyone about. The time we were walking. Just the three of us. And I was in the middle. I don’t remember where and I don't remember when. I don't even remember the season. I just remember walking between them and feeling for the first time that I belonged somewhere."

"The inside Jokes weren't jokes anymore. They had become stories. Nobody brought up the bad names or the bad times. And nobody felt sad as long as we could postpone tomorrow with more nostalgia."

"“It's great that you can listen and be a shoulder to someone, but what about when someone doesn't need a shoulder? What if they need the arms or something like that? You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things.”"

"It's just that I don't want to be somebody's crush. If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don't want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it too. I want them to be able to do whatever they want around me. And if they do something I don't like, I'll tell them."

"And we could all sit around and wonder and feel bad about each other and blame a lot of people for what they did or didn't do or what they didn't know. I don't know. I guess there could always be someone to blame. Maybe if my grandfather didn't hit her, my mom wouldn't be so quiet. And maybe she wouldn't have married my dad because he doesn't hit. And maybe I would never have been born. But I'm very glad to have been born, so I don't know what to say about it all espically since my mom seems happy with her life, and I don't know what else there is to want."

"So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them."

"Maybe it's good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think that the only perspective is to really be there."

"Things just keep going. We didn't talk about anything heavy or light. We were just there together. And that was enough."

"So, if this does end up being my last letter, please believe that things are good with me, and even when they’re not, they will be soon enough. And I will believe the same about you. Love always, Charlie"

"You aren't the only enemies the Ra'zac have. I was tracking them."

"My mind is the only sanctuary that has not been stolen from me. Men have tried to breach it before, but I've learned to defend it vigorously, for I am only safe with my innermost thoughts."

"Do you think I enjoy this? My life has been threatened from the day I was born! All of my waking hours have been spent avoiding danger in one form or another. And sleep never comes easily because I always worry if I'll live to see the dawn. If there ever was a time I felt secure, it must have been in my mother's womb, though I wasn't safe even there! You don't understand - if you lived with this fear, you would have learned the same lesson I did: Do not take chances."

"Eragon: "Humor, Murtagh?" Murtagh: "Only on the gallows.""

"...Nothing you say or do will convince me to open my mind."

"I haven't done anything to deserve this treatment, though it would have been easier to atone for if I had. No... my only wrongdoing is existing in the first place.""

"What wisdom can I give people that they haven’t already learned? What feats can I achieve that an army couldn’t do better? It’s insanity!"

"If Murtagh will prove untrustworthy, Saphira can always chase him away. Join us if you wish."

"It’s overwhelming. I feel as if I am living in an illusion, a dream where all things are possible. Amazing things do happen, I know, but always to someone else, always in some far-off place and time. But I found your egg, was tutored by a Rider, and dueled a Shade — those can't be the actions of the farm boy I am, or was. Something is changing me."

"It is your wyrd that shapes you. Every age needs an icon — perhaps that lot has fallen to you. Farm boys are not named for the first Rider without cause. Your namesake was the beginning, and now you are the continuation. Or the end."

"A hatchling, that is what you are. A hatchling struggling into the world. I may be younger than you in years, but I am ancient in my thoughts. Do not worry about these things. Find peace in where and what you are. People often know what must be done. All you need to do is show them the way- that is wisdom. As for feats, no army could have given the blessing you did."

"Clear your mind of such thoughts. They cannot be answered and will make you no happier."

"After all, how can a mere dragon expect to tell a man like yourself what to do? In fact, everyone should stand in awe of your brilliance of finding the only dead end."

"That's the problem! I've been choosing male names. You are a she!"

""Are you Saphira?" She looked at him with intelligent eyes. Deep in his mind he felt her satisfaction. Yes."

"Saphira: If anything happens, I'm going to pin you to my back and never let you off."

"Saphira: It's funny to see a hatchling like you beaten by the old one."

"Saphira: Together we can cast spells that are beyond either of us."

"Saphira: No hunter of the sky should end his days as prey. Better to die on the wing than pinned to the ground."

"Eragon: Saphira, where are you? Let's have some fun!"

"Eragon: My heart died a while back."

"Saphira: The worth is in the act. Your worth halts when you surrender the will to change and experience life"

"Eragon: If I drank that much mead it would kill me!"

"Eragon: I will fight when needed, revel when there's an occasion, mourn when there is grief, and die if my time comes...but I won't let anybody use me against my will."

"Eragon: Should I kill him?"

"Eragon: Define normal."

"“To know who you are without any delusions or sympathy is a moment of revelation that no one experiences unscathed.”"

"You don’t know what it is to reach my age, look back, and realize that you don’t remember much of it: then to look forward and know that many years still lie ahead of you..."

"Well, then... if you do, come tell me. I am most interested in this trader who pretends to know so much about dragons."

"Anyway, I'm not going to stay behind while some stripling gets to run around with a dragon."

"Defend yourself!"

"Once upon a time that was true... but no more. When I was young... younger than you are now, I was chosen... chosen by the Riders to join their ranks. While they trained me, I became friends with another apprentice... Morzan, before he was a Forsworn. But then he betrayed us to Galbatorix... and in the fighting at Doru Areaba - Vroengard's city - my young dragon was killed. Her name... was Saphira."

"May the coming years bring you great happiness."

"There's a reason why we're born with brains in our heads, not rocks."

"And now for the greatest adventure of all."

"May your swords stay sharp."

"One part brave, three parts fool. [said of Eragon]"

""You can't argue with all the fools in the world. It's better to let them have their way, then trick them when they're not paying attention."

"Many people have died for their beliefs...The real courage is living and suffering for what you believe."

"People have an annoying habit of remembering things they shouldn’t."

"The sea is emotion incarnate. It loves, hates, and weeps. It defies all attempts to capture it with words and rejects all shackles. No matter what you say about it, there is always that which you can't."

"I didn't think I would ever meet a noble who wasn't corrupt. Now that I have, I find I prefer them when they're greedy bastards."

"[after Eragon states that he does not understand his training] Of course you don't. That's why I'm teaching you and not the other way around. Now stop talking, or we'll never get anywhere."

"The sands of time cannot be stopped. Years pass whether we will them or not… but we can remember. What has been lost may yet live on in memories"

"Orik: See you now? Humans and elves are the giants. The land's full of them, here, there, and everywhere, stomping about with their big feet and casting us in endless shadowses."

"Wind howled through the night, carrying a scent that would change the world."

"Eragon recoiled in shock. Standing in front of him, licking off the membrane that encased it, was a dragon."

"Durza: After her! She is the one I want!"

"Eragon: Why are you here?"

"Solembum: Listen closely and I will tell you two things. When the time comes and you need a weapon, look under the roots of the Menoa tree. Then, when all seems lost and your power is insufficient, go to the rock of Kuthian and speak your name to open the Vault of Souls."

"Solembum: Knowing is independent of being. I did not know you existed before you bumbled in here and ruined my nap. Yet that doesn't mean you weren't real before you woke me."

"Ajihad: You are an enigma, Eragon, a quandary that no one knows how to solve."

"Nasuada: I met Murtagh earlier....he's anxious to speak with you. He seemed lonely; you should visit him."

"Arya: Farewell Eragon, rider of dragons...my life is in your hands."

"Eragon: Thanks, again."

"Uncle Garrow: Let no one rule your mind or body. Take special care that your thoughts remain unfettered, one may be a free man and yet be bound tighter than a slave. Give men your ear, but not your heart. Show respect for those in power, but don’t follow them blindly. Judge with logic and reason, but comment not. Consider none your superior in life. Treat all fairly or they will seek revenge. Be careful with your money. Hold fast to your beliefs and others will listen. Of the affairs of love, my only advice is to be honest. That’s your most powerful tool to unlock a heart or gain forgiveness."

"Durza: Congratulations. You've just been promoted."

""Ain't worth a Bean," she said."

"She wanted to give God credit for every good thing, but when it was bad, then she didn’t mention God or had some reason why it was a good thing after all."

"He dreamed, as human beings always dreamed — random firings of memory and imagination that the unconscious mind tries to put together into coherent stories."

"An eye for an eye? How Christian of you." "Unbelievers always want other people to act like Christians."

"I do give the other guy a chance to learn what he’s doing before I insist on perfection."

"The commander must be able to change his plans abruptly when obstacles or opportunities appear. If his army isn’t ready and willing to respond to his will, his cleverness comes to nothing."

"Somebody has to roll the dice. Mine are the hands that hold those dice. I’m not a bureaucrat, placing my career above the larger purposes I was put here to serve. I will not put the dice in someone else’s hands, or pretend that I don’t have the choice I have."

"Bean’s powers of analysis were extraordinary. So, also, were his powers of deception. Some of Bean’s guesses weren’t right — but was that because he didn’t know the truth, or because he simply didn’t want them to know how much he knew, or how much he guessed."

"Ender Wiggin was not larger than life, Bean knew. He was exactly life-sized, and so his larger-than-life burden was too much for him. And yet he was bearing it. So far."

"Ender was what Bean only wished to be — the kind of person on whom you could put all your hopes, who could carry all your fears, and he would not let you down, would not betray you. I want to be the kind of boy you are, thought Bean. But I don’t want to go through what you’ve been through to get there."

"Please stop reassuring me of how respectful you are whenever you’re about to tell me that I’m an idiot."

"You can’t rule out the impossible, because you never know which of your assumptions about what was possible might turn out, in the real universe, to be false."

"Doesn’t it occur to you that the very fact that you’re asking me this question tells me there’s something else for me to figure out, and therefore greatly increases the chance that I will figure it out?"

"Sometimes you have to tell people the truth and ask them to do the thing you want, instead of trying to trick them into it."

"Sometimes the other side is irresistibly strong, and then the only sensible course of action is to retreat in order to save your force to fight another day."

"Most victories came from instantly exploiting your enemy's stupid mistakes, and not from any particular brilliance in your own plan."

"Humans will always act to preserve their own lives — except for the times when they don’t."

"Once they understood our autonomy, the seed of their defeat was sown."

"Isn't that what it means to be civilized? That you can wait to get what you want?"

"Christians have been expecting the imminent end of the world for millennia." "But it keeps not ending." "So far, so good."

"Trying to shock nuns is not much sport. There is no trophy."

"Know, think, choose, do."

""I’m not stupid!" In [his] experience, that was a sentence never uttered except to prove its own inaccuracy."

"Analyzing things was fine, but good reflexes could save your life."

"Will I die from her mistakes too? No, I'll die from my own damn mistakes!"

"Male and female he created them. Making his image anatomically vague, one must suppose."

"I just... I'm saying that God must have been watching over you." "Yeah. Well, sure. So why didn't he watch over all those dead kids?" "He took them to his heart and loved them." "So then he didn't love me?" "No, he loved you too, he — " "Cause if he was watching so careful, he could have given me something to eat now and then."

"The more Sister Carlotta explained it, the less he understood it. Because if there was somebody in charge, then he ought to be fair, and if he wasn't fair, then why should Sister Carlotta be so happy that he was in charge?"

"Fools always look up for power. People above you, they never want to share power with you. Why you look to them? They give you nothing. People below you, you give them hope, you give them respect, they give you power, cause they don't think they have any, so they don't mind giving it up."

"Soldiers do not give the other guy a sporting chance. Soldiers shoot in the back, lay traps and ambushes, lie to the enemy and outnumber the other bastard every chance they get. Your kind of murder only works among civilians."

"Soldiers don't like to lose. And that is why losing is a much more powerful teacher than winning."

"He hadn't realized how much he needed the honor of others until he finally got it."

"If someone runs after your car, screaming and waving his arms, you know that something significant is intended, even if you can't hear a word he's saying."

"“O my son Absalom,” Bean said softly, knowing for the first time the kind of anguish that could tear such words from a man’s mouth. “my son, my son Absalom. Would God I could die for thee, O Absalom, my son. My sons!”"

"Suddenly a vast eruption licked outward toward the last of the human fighters, Petra' s ships, on which there might or might not still be men alive to see death coming at them. To see their victory approach."

"If I had a plan, I'd take control. I have no plan. So for good or ill, it's Ender's game not mine."

"...for we humans do, when the cause is sufficient, spend our own lives. We throw ourselves onto the grenade to save our buddies in the foxhole. We rise out of the trenches and charge the entrenched enemy and die like maggots under a blowtorch. We strap bombs on our bodies and blow ourselves up in the midst of our enemies. We are, when the cause is sufficient, insane."

"This is a true story. I don't expect you to believe me- I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't lived it- but it is. Everything I describe in this book happened, just as I tell it. The thing about real life is, when you do something stupid, it normally costs you. In books, the heroes can make as many mistakes as they like. It doesn't matter what they do, because everything works out in the end. They'll beat the bad guys and put things right and everything winds up cool. In real life, vacuum cleaners kill spiders. If you cross a busy road without looking, you get whacked by a car. If you fall out of a tree, you break some bones. Real life's nasty. It's cruel. It doesn't care about heroes and happy endings and the way things should be. In real life, bad things often happen. People die. Fights are lost. Evil often wins. I just wanted to make that clear before I begin."

"I could have run after him, following the trail of blood. If I'd called Mr. Crepsley, we could have tracked him down and put an end to Steve Leopard and his threats. It would have been the wise thing to do. But I didn't. I couldn't. He was my friend."

"My name is Darren Shan. I'm a half-vampire."

"I hated the way they all felt sorry for me. All they could see was that I was not what I used to be. All they saw was that I had no home. But they didn't really understand. I hadn't had a real home since my parents died. I was used to being alone. And I had the sky."

"Look, these aren't people we know," Marco argued. "They aren't my friends. Or my family." He shot a guilty look at Jake. "And we did everything we could for Tom. So why should I get killed for strangers? We can't stay lucky forever. Sooner or later, we'll slip up. Sooner or later we'll be standing around here crying because Jake or Rachel or Cassie or Tobias is gone." "You know something?" Rachel exploded. "I'm tired of trying to talk you into this, Marco. You want out? Fine, you're OUT!" "Hey, Rachel, you're not just doing this to help save the human race," Marco yelled back. "You get off on the danger. That's why you went with Tobias to free that bird. That wasn't about saving the world. That was about rescuing some stupid bird."

"Oh, come on, Marco," Cassie chided gently. "It's an opportunity to try out a new morph!" "Yeah," Jake chided. "Instead of being home doing math homework, you get to turn into a wolf. Are you going to tell me you'd rather be doing equations?" "Let's see," Marco considered. "Math? Or becoming a wolf and going off to find aliens? Maybe I should ask the school counselor what she thinks. It's such a common problem. I'm sure she'd have some good advice."

"Be happy for me, and for all who fly free."

"Marco: No, I haven't had any weird dreams about the sea," Marco said. "I've had weird dreams about my sheets trying to strangle me. I've had weird dreams about falling from way up high and when I finally land I'm in Mister Rogers's Neighborhood talking to King Friday. I've had weird dreams about that woman on Baywatch... hmm, well, that does kind of involve the ocean, I guess."

"Rachel: You have dreams about King Friday?"

"Marco: What's wrong with dreaming about King Friday?"

"Rachel: Nothing, I was just going to say maybe you should see a counselor before your condition worsens."

"I figure this ship is going like, what, twenty miles per hour? Figure an hour, and that puts us twenty miles out, right?" Rachel pointed a finger at her forehead and said, "Jake's a total mathematical genius. One hour at twenty miles per hour. Right away he figures out that's twenty miles."

"How long until your people return to Earth?" I asked. He hesitated. "Two years!" Jake looked stricken. I went to his side and slipped my arm through his. "Five kids against an enemy that has destroyed half the galaxy? Five of us?" Ax gave that smile, the one he did with his eyes. he said. "Six. Well then," Marco said with grim sarcasm, "with six it shouldn't be any problem."

"An Andalite may think that humans are simple, open, trusting creatures. But they are more subtle than they seem to be at first. Possibly this is because of their spoken language, where no one word ever means just one thing. —From the Earth Diary of Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill"

""Hello?" I turned around. It was an older human. He was paler than Marco, but other features were similar. Marco had warned me to say nothing to his father but "yes" and "no." "No," I said to Marco's father. "I'm Marco's dad. Are you a friend of his?" "Yes." "What's your name?" "No," I answered. "Your name is 'No'?" "Yes." "That's an unusual name, isn't it?" "No." "It's not?" "Yes." "Yes, it's not an unusual name?" "No." "Now I'm totally confused." "Yes." Marco's father stared at me. Then, in a loud voice he yelled, "Hey, Marco? Marco? Would you... um... your friend is here. Your friend 'No' is here." "No," I said. "Yes, that's what I said." Marco came running down the stairs. "Whoa!" he cried. "Um, Dad! You met my friend?" "No?" Marco's father said. "What?" Marco asked. Marco's father shook his head. "I must be getting old. I don't understand you kids." "Yes," I offered."

""Give me liberty or give me death." A human named Patrick Henry said that. I wonder if the Yeerks knew before they came to conquer Earth that humans said things like that. I wonder if the Yeerks knew what they were getting into. —From the Earth Diary of Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill"

"Ax asked. "All animals are sacred to Cassie," Marco said. "She's Doctor Dolittle and that animal guy who comes on Letterman all rolled into one." Ax pointed out. "We don't eat dogs!" I said. We had given Ax a World Almanac to help him learn about Earth. Ever since then, he'd become an expert on useless information. He could tell you you the per capita income of Tanzania, or the long jump record at the Olympics. "Well, we don't eat dogs in this country," Rachel said. "Um...excuse me?" Jake interrupted."

"I, Elfangor, was going to become a great warrior, a prince, a hero."

"<An exo-datologist, eh?> Alloran said with a slight sneer."

""We just had a war," Loren said. "That's ... that's what happened to my dad He was in it. He didn't get killed or anything. But he kind of . . . I don't know. After he came back I guess he couldn't cope with reality. So he left."

"<Be careful what you accuse me of, Aristh Elfangor,> Alloran said harshly. <You're a child, so I forgive your impertinence. This time. But you are here to learn, not to question orders. And one of the things you'll learn, my idealistic aristh, is that war is not about striking brave poses and playing the hero. War is about killing.>"

"<My name is Elfangor, Yeerk,> I said. <Remember the name. You'll be hearing it again. But you will never take me alive.>"

"How could he imagine that anything to do with Taxxons could ever be a good cause? These Taxxon were no less cannibalistic. No less murderous. And yet, if they opposed the Yeerks, could I refuse to offer that help?"

"<Elfangor, there's no future for me anywhere.>"

"<They are defenseless,> I said as calmly as I could."

"<The entire species of Ellimists just vanished.>"

""Is this going to work?" Loren asked anxiously."

"And then it came to me, in a moment of clarity: I had no choice. When Arbron had been in utter despair and had wanted to die, I stopped him. Because without life there is no despair, but without life there can also never be hope. I had no right to erase Loren's hope, no matter how bad I felt."

"<And I know too many secrets. I know that my own people did use a Quantum virus in the Hork-Bajir war. What might they do if they suddenly had the Time Matrix?>"

"I met a lot of humans who were working in the computer field. My human friend Bill used to come over to my room and we would exchange ideas. It was hard for me to simplify my knowledge enough for him to follow. Everything had to be explained in simple human terms, using words like "window" to explain a childishly simple concept. And my human friend Steve thought it was a huge breakthrough to use symbolic icons and a simple pointer rather than a lot of complex language."

"Am I really an Ellimist?" the man asked, mocking. "Let's see. I know that Arbron still lives in the tunnels of the Living Hive. I know that you made a universe once, you and the human and the Yeerk called Visser Three."

"There's nothing I can do," I said at last. "I tried my hand at being a hero. I failed."

"What do I want? Nothing. But I can tell you that you have twisted and distorted time. Things are not as they should be. Battles are lost that should have been won. What should be safe is now endangered."

"Once, a long time before, I had explained to Loren what it must be like to see the universe as the Ellimists saw it. And now, as the Ellimist lifted me up out of the everyday world of three dimensions of space and one of time, I saw what he saw. When I had used the Time Matrix I glimpsed the lines of time interwoven. But now I saw a thousand times more. It was beyond sight. Beyond sound. It was some new sense, some new awareness. I could feel the lines of time flowing through me. I could see and taste and hear and touch and smell a billion possibilities, all flowing through me. I saw the Ellimist himself, as he really was. An indescribable being of light and time and space. Huge, but without a place. Alone, but not the only one of his kind. I saw and understood the vast power that trailed the lines of time through his grasp. And yet, against the enormity of all that had ever been and all that would ever be, I saw his limits, too. The Ellimist was mighty. But not all-powerful. I saw a young Andalite who looked like I had once: so serious, so determined to prove himself. I heard his name in my mind: Aximili- Esgarrouth-Isthill. Hello, little brother, I said silently. I saw Arbron, still alive on the Taxxon world. I felt his Taxxon hunger. But I also felt his Andalite pride. Hello, Arbron. You have become the hero I always wanted to be. I saw Loren, and wrapped around her time line now was another human who would be her mate. I had been written out of her memory. It tore at my heart to realize that I was now a stranger to her. And yet, I saw that some part of my own time line still intersected her own. I still touched her future in some way. My line and hers converged, and then from those two lines came a new line, just emerging, just beginning to grow. I cried. YOU ARE AWAY, ELFANGOR-SIRINIAL-SHAMTUL. WHAT WAS BROKEN HAS BEEN REPAIRED. YOU ARE WHERE YOU MUST BE. THE CHILD WILL BE RAISED AS THE SON OF ANOTHER."

"I asked him. the Ellimist asked. And then he laughed a huge laugh that reverberated through all the tendrils of space and time. the Ellimist said, all laughter silent now."

"Erek didn't mean anything bad. You know that," Jake said. "He just meant —" "I know what he meant," I snapped. "He meant if it came to crunch time, would I destroy my own mother to protect the mission? That's what he meant." Jake grabbed my shoulder and turned him around. "And?" I was still mad. But I knew why I was mad. It wasn't that Erek had insulted me somehow. It was that Erek was right. "I don't know, Jake," I said. "I don't know."

"I realized I had grown very serious. I don't know why, but I wanted Jake to agree with me. It was important to me. We flapped side-by-side back to the others. Jake said wearily. <Yeah. Well, I'm me, no matter what,> I said defiantly."

"I have a picture of my mom next to my bed. I look at it every night before I go to bed. I can never decide what I want to see when I look at it. I don't know if I see the mother I lost, or the mother I want to rescue somehow. I don't know anymore."

"my father cried. Alloran quoted from the regulations. my father demanded.> Alloran said harshly."

"Have you fought in many battles, Aldrea?" I was surprised by the question. "Have you ever killed a fellow Andalite?" "You ask me to kill my own people today and to lead my people in killing their brothers," Dak said. "You say they are not Hork-Bajir, but Yeerks. But when the dead have given up their souls to Mother Sky, there will be Hork-Bajir bodies lying dead." I exploded. "Be quiet, Aldrea," Dak said. He didn't shout. He said it calmly, in a low voice. "These are my people who will die today. Be quiet, Andalite. Be quiet."

"They pulled back reluctantly from the slaughter. But they obeyed. Obeyed. Me. Hork-Bajir who had never known the word "obedience" now obeyed me. Why? Because I was the seer? Because I was wiser than they? No. Because I had destroyed their past and now they had no choice but to follow me into a future they could not imagine. The monsters in our valley were destroyed that day. Only a very few survived. But that was all right, because we didn't need monsters anymore. We had become them."

"You almighty Andalites. There is no limit to your arrogance, is there? Well, let me tell you something: We may be simple people. But we don't use biology to invent monsters. And we don't enslave other species. And we don't unleash a plague of parasites on the galaxy, endangering every other free species, and then go swaggering around like the lords of the universe. No, we're too simple for all that. We're too stupid to lie and manipulate. We're too stupid to be ruthless. We're too stupid to know how to build powerful weapons designed to annihilate our enemies. Until you came, Andalite, we were too stupid to know how to kill."

"A fool is strong so that others will see. A wise person is strong for himself."

"Get pushed, push back. Toby had already seen it. She knew that the Hork-Bajir would need to be strong to defend themselves against humans once the Yeerks were defeated. Get pushed, push back. The only way. No, not the only way. There was another way. Don't push to begin with. It's the aggressors who start the cycle. It's the guy who wakes up in the morning and decides he can't get through the day without finding someone to attack, to insult, to hurt. But where does that leave you? Letting jerks dictate your reactions? Always sinking to the level of whatever creep comes along?"

"Great. I have a nut for a father and a fake for a cousin." I turned my back on them and walked away. "Tobias," Aria said. I turned back to face her. "What?" "I…I knew your father. We were, shall we say, on the opposite sides of certain issues. But he was no fool." Suddenly Aria/Visser Three smiled. It was a faraway smile, like she/he was remembering something from long ago. "Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul was no fool. And the galaxy will not soon see his like again." I threw up my hands. "Good grief, you're just as crazy as he was."

"When you loved the one who was killing you, it left you no options. How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one? If your life was all you had to give your beloved, how could you not give it? If it was someone you truly loved?"

"Jasper? What do vampires do for bachelor parties? You're not taking him to a strip club, are you?"

""No one will dare to call you plain when I'm through with you." "Only because they're afraid you'll suck their blood," I muttered."

"It wasn't nearly as easy to dance with Charlie. He was no better at it than I was, so we moved safely from side to side in a tiny square formation. Edward and Esme spun around us like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers."

"You're awfully small to be so hugely irritating."

"How did people do this — swallow all their fears and trust someone else so implicitly with every imperfection and fear they had — with less than the absolute commitment Edward had given me?"

""Don't be afraid," I murmured. "We belong together." I was abruptly overwhelmed by the truth of my own words. This moment was so perfect, so right, there was no way to doubt it."

"Why am I covered in feathers?"

"Do you want me to sing to you? I'll sing all night if it will keep the bad dreams away."

"Life sucks, and then you die. Yeah, I should be so lucky."

"You ever think about dating?" [...] "I don't see them either, Quil. I don't see their faces."

"Jake, Seth thought, they aren't our enemies. Shut up, kid! Just 'cause you've got some kind of sick hero worship thing going on with that bloodsucker, it doesn't change the law. They are our enemies. [...] I don't care if you had fun fighting alongside Edward Cullen once upon a time."

"I'd seen him angry, and I'd seen him arrogant, and once I'd seen him in pain. But this — this was beyond agony. His eyes were half-crazed. [...] He stared down at the couch beside him with an expression like someone had lit him on fire."

"Jeez, she was running true to form. Of course, die for the monster spawn. It was so Bella."

""Over my pile of ashes," Rosalie hissed at him."

"I told you—," I started to say. "Did you know that I told you so has a brother, Jacob?" she asked, cutting me off. "His name is Shut the hell up."

"Bella's sacrifice is a heavy price, and we will all recognize that. It is against everything we stand for to take a human life. Making an exception to that code is a bleak thing. We will all mourn for what we do tonight."

"Carlisle Cullen. Looking at him without that hate clouding my eyes, I couldn't deny that killing him was murder. He was good. Good as any human we protected. Maybe better. Too much better."

"This is about Bella. She has never been the one for you, she has never chosen you, but you continue to destroy your life for her! [...] Maybe you're right. But you're going to destroy the pack over her, Sam. No matter how many of them survive tonight, they will always have murder on their hands."

"Jacob — you can't turn your back on the tribe. [...] I stared into his furious eyes. Ephraim Black's son was not born to follow Levi Uley's."

"Seth, are you gonna get mad at me if I kill your sister? He pretended to think about it for a minute. Well... yeah, probably."

""You're scared of Leah, but you're best buds with the psychopath blonde?" There was a low hiss from the second floor. Cool, she'd heard me."

"It was really too bad [Edward] couldn't hear Bella's thoughts. Then he'd annoy the crap out of her, too, and she'd get tired of him."

"They are vampires, I guess, Seth allowed after a minute, compensating for Leah's reaction. I mean, it makes sense. And if [drinking blood] helps Bella, it's a good thing, right? Both Leah and I stared at him. [...] Mom dropped him a lot when he was a baby, Leah told me. On his head, apparently."

"You know how you drown a blonde, Rosalie?" I asked without stopping or turning to look at her. "Glue a mirror to the bottom of a pool."

"This was the problem with hanging out with vampires — you got used to them. They started messing up the way you saw the world. They started feeling like friends."

"Shut up, please, Seth. Shutting."

"Hey, do you know what you call a blonde with a brain?" I asked, and then continued on the same breath, "a golden retriever."

"You. Got. Food. In. My. Hair."

""S'not so hard to erase a blonde's memory," I countered. "Just blow in her ear." "Get some new jokes," she snapped."

"That would go away, you know, if you imprinted. You wouldn't have to hurt over [Bella] anymore. Do you want to forget the way you feel about Sam? She deliberated for a moment. I think I do. I sighed. She was in a healthier place than I was."

"Have you heard this one, Psycho? How do a blonde's brain cells die? [... A] blonde's brain cells die alone."

"I could see that now — how the universe swirled around this one point. I'd never seen the symmetry of the universe before, but now it was plain. The gravity of the earth no longer tied me to the place where I stood. It was the baby girl in the blonde vampire's arms that held me here now. Renesmee."

"From upstairs, there was a new sound. The only sound that could touch me in this endless instant. A frantic pounding, a racing beat... A changing heart."

"James, snapping my leg under his foot. That was nothing. That was a soft place to rest on a feather bed. I'd take that now, a hundred times. A hundred snaps. I'd take it and be grateful."

"All I wanted was to die. To never have been born. The whole of my existence did not outweigh this pain. Wasn't worth living through it for one more heartbeat."

"The brilliant light overhead was still blinding-bright, and yet I could plainly see the glowing strands of the filaments inside the bulb. I could see each color of the rainbow in the white light, and, at the very edge of the spectrum, an eighth color I had no name for."

"He smiled the kind of smile that would have stopped my heart if it were still beating."

"Instinctively, I tensed to defend myself. Any vampire who saw Jasper would have had the same reaction. The scars were like a lighted billboard. Dangerous, they screamed. How many vampires had tried to kill Jasper? Hundreds? Thousands? The same number that had died in the attempt."

"You stupid mutt! How could you? My baby!" [Jacob] backed out the front door now as I stalked him, half-running backward down the stairs. "It wasn't my idea, Bella!" "I've held her all of one time, and already you think you have some moronic wolfy claim to her? She's mine. [...] How dare you imprint on my baby? Have you lost your mind?"

""You nicknamed my daughter after the Loch Ness Monster?" I screeched. And then I lunged for his throat."

"I'll play you for it," Alice suggested. "Rock, paper, scissors." [...] "Why don't you just tell me who wins?" Edward said wryly. Alice beamed. "I do. Excellent."

"We're going to tell Alice that I ran right to the clothes," I whispered, twisting my fingers into his hair and pulling my face closer to his. "We're going to tell her I spent hours in there playing dress-up. We're going to lie."

""How do I look?" Edward smiled. "Gorgeous, of course—" "Yes, yes, she always looks gorgeous," Alice finished his thought impatiently."

"'Bout time somebody scored around here."

"I'm not even sure she's really a vampire, let alone a newborn," Emmett called from under the stairs. "She's too tame."

""Bella's supposed to be a grown-up. Married and a mom and all that. Shouldn't there be more dignity?" Renesmee frowned, and touched Edward's face. "What does she want?" I asked. "Less dignity," Edward said with a grin."

"It was like I had been born to be a vampire. The idea made me want to laugh, but it also made me want to sing. I had found my true place in the world, the place I fit, the place I shined."

"Who rules you, nomads? Do you answer to someone's will besides your own? Are you free to choose your own path, or will the Volturi decide how you will live? "I came to witness. I stay to fight. The Volturi care nothing for the death of a child. They seek the death of our free will."

"Goodbye, Jacob, my brother...my son."

""If we live through this," Garrett whispered to Kate, "I'll follow you anywhere, woman." "Now he tells me," she muttered."

"It probably wasn't very mature. But I figured it would take Aro about half a second to guess — if he hadn't already — that my shield was more powerful than Edward had known. [...] So I grinned a huge, smug smile right at Jane."

"I lifted my head and kissed [Edward] with a passion that might possibly set the forest on fire. I wouldn't have noticed."

"So there are real werewolves?" I asked. "With the full moon and silver bullets and all that?" Jacob snorted. "Real. Does that make me imaginary?"

"And then [Edward and I] continued blissfully into this small but perfect piece of our forever."

"“My name is Dimitri Belikov,” he said. I could hear a faint Russian accent. “I’ve come to take you back to St. Vladimir’s Academy, Princess.”"

"Forcing five-year-olds to spell Vasilisa Dragomir and Rosemarie Hathaway was beyond cruel, and we'd-or rather, I'd-responded appropriately. I'd chucked my book at our teacher and called her a fascist bastard. I hadn't known what those words meant, but I'd known how to hit a moving target."

"Time for the lecture. It was a good one-one of Kirova's best, which was saying something."

"I honestly couldn't believe he was still around. The guy was so freakin old, he should have retired. Or died."

"(Rose)"Hey Mason, wipe the drool off your face. If you're going to think about me naked, do it on your own time." (Mason Ashford)"This is my time, Hathaway. I'm leading today's session." (Rose)"Oh yeah? Huh. Well, I guess this is a good time to think about me naked, then."(Eddie Castile)"It's always a good time to think about you naked.""

"Are you lost, little girl? The elementary school's over on west campus."

"“Go find your pacifier, and shut the hell up.”"

"I couldn’t be Mason’s girlfriend because when I imagined someone holding me and whispering dirty things in my ear, he had a Russian accent."

"You can't force love, I realized. It's there or it isn't. If it's not there, you've got to be able to admit it. If it is there, you've got to do whatever it takes to protect the ones you love."

"By the way, my name's Rose Hathaway. I'm seventeen years old, training to protect and kill vampires, in love with a completely unsuitable guy, and have a best friend whose weird magic could drive her crazy. Hey, no one said high school was easy."

"The other problem in my life is Dimitri. He's the one who killed Natalie, and he's a total badass. He's also pretty good-looking. Okay—more than good-looking. He's hot—like, the kind of hot that makes you stop walking on the street and get hit by traffic."

"Good God, Men everywhere."

"My mother slapped me, the pain snapping me out of my daze. “Run!”, she yelled at me. “He’s dead! You are not going to join him!” I saw the panic on her own face, panic over me- her daughter- getting killed. I remembered Dimitri saying he’d rather die than see me dead. And if I stood there stupidly, letting the Strigoi get me, I’d fail both of them. “Run!”, she cried again. Tears streaming down my face, I ran."

""You will lose what you value most, so treasure it while you can.”"

"“Even I make mistakes." I put on my brash, overconfident face. "I know it's hard to believe—kind of surprises me myself—but I guess it has to happen. It's probably some kind of karmic way to balance out the universe. Otherwise, it wouldn't be fair to have one person so full of awesomeness.”"

"My heart shattered. My world shattered. You will lose what you value most It hadn't been me Rhonda was talking about. It hadn't even been Dimitri's life. What you value most It had been his soul."

"“It's not about you, okay? This time, it's about me. Not you. All my life, Lissa... all my life, it's been the same. They come first. I've lived my life for you. I've trained to be your shadow, but you know what? I want to come first. I need to take care of myself for once. I'm tired of looking out for everyone else and having to put aside what I want. Dimitri and I did that, and look what happened. He's gone. I will never hold him again. Now I owe it to him to do this. I'm sorry if it hurts you, but it's my choice!”"

"I set off, off to kill the man I loved."

"And it was memories like that that made it so hard to comprehend this quest to kill him, even if he was a Strigoi. Yet.. At the same time, it was exactly because of memories like that that I had to destroy him. I needed to remember him as the man who’d loved me and held me in bed. I needed to remember that that man would not want to stay a monster."

""Why?" I asked softly. The word was carried away on the wind, but he heard. "Because I want you." I gave him a sad smile, wondering if we'd meet again in the land of dead. "Wrong answer." I told him. I let go."

""I will always love you." Then plunged the stake into his chest. It wasn's as precise as I would have liked, not with the skilled way he was dodging. I struggled to get the stake deep enough to his heart, unsure if I could do it from this angle. Then, his struggles stopped. His eyes stared at me, stunned, and his lips parted, almost like a smile, albeit a grisly and pained one. "That's what I was supposed to say.." He gasped out. Those were his last words."

"I would never forget Dimitri, not for the rest of my life. And this time, I wouldn’t forget his lessons. With a speed he wasn’t ready for, I struck out and plunged the stake through his chest. My strength was there- sliding the stake past his ribs and straight into his heart. And as I did it, it was like piercing my own heart at the same time."

"“What did you see?” I shook my head, unable to look at her either. “A nightmare,” I murmured. “ My worst nightmare coming true.”"

"“You’re beautiful in a battle”, said Dimitri. His cold voice carried to me clearly, even above the roar of combat. “ Like an evening angel come to deliver the justice of heaven.” “Funny”, I said, shifting the hold on my stake, “That’s kind of why I’m here.” “Angels fall, Rose.”"

"It was like one of these moments when people talked about their lives flashing before their eyes. Because as we stared at one another, every part of our relationship replayed in my mind’s eye. I remembered how strong and invincible he’d been when we first met, when he’d come to bring Lissa and me back to the folds of Moroi society. I remembered the gentleness of his touch when he’d bandaged my bloodied and battered hands. I remembered him carrying me in his arms after Victor’s daughter Natalie had attacked me. Most of all, I remembered the night we’d been together in the cabin, just before the Strigoi had taken him. We’d known each other only a year, but we’d lived a lifetime in it."

"Both Christian and Adrian had worried there would be some piece of Strigoi left in him, but their fears had been about violence and bloodshed. No one would have guessed this: that living as a Strigoi had hardened his heart, killing any chance of him loving anyone. Killing any chance of him loving me. And I was pretty sure if that was the case, then part of me would die too."

"But my other words at the Mastranos’ had betrayed me: I have fun with him. Now, you should have fun with the one you love, but that shouldn’t have been what first came to my mind. I should have said, We strengthen each other, or, He makes me want to be a better person. Perhaps most importantly, He understands me perfectly. But none of that was true, so I hadn’t said those things."

"“She was right about something else too,” Dimitri said after a long pause. My back was to him, but there was a strange quality to his voice that made me turn around. “What’s that?” I asked. “That I do still love you.” With that one sentence, everything in the universe changed. Time slowed to one heartbeat. The world became his eyes, his voice. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t real. None of it could be real. It felt like a spirit dream. I resisted the urge to close my eyes and see if I’d wake up moments later. No. No matter how unbelievable it all seemed, this was no dream. This was real. This was life. This was flesh and blood.."

"She leaned down and looked at his lifeless face and Liesel kissed her best friend, Rudy Steiner, soft and true on his lips. He tasted dusty and sweet. He tasted like the regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of the anarchist’s suit collection. She kissed him long and soft, and others and when she pulled herself away, she touched his mouth with her fingers. Her hands were trembling, her lips were fleshy, and she leaned in once more, this time losing control and misjudging it. Their teeth collided on the demolished world of Himmel Street."

"[First lines] Here is a small fact: You are going to die. I am in all truthfulness attempting to be cheerful about this whole topic, though most people find themselves hindered in believing me, no matter my protestations. Please trust me. I most definitely can be cheerful. I can be amiable. Agreeable. Affable. And that's only the A's. Just don't ask me to be nice. Nice has nothing to do with me."

"How about a kiss, Saumensch?"

"He stood waist-deep in the water for a few moments longer before climbing out and handing her the book. His trousers clung to him, and he did not stop walking. In truth, I think he was afraid. Rudy Steiner was scared of the book thief's kiss. He must have longed for it so much. He must have loved her so incredibly hard. So hard that he would never ask for her lips again, and would go to his grave without them."

"[Rudy protecting Liesel from Nazi soldiers] Hands were clamped upon her from behind and the boy next door brought her to the ground, knees-first. He collected her punches as if they were presents. Her bony hands and elbows were accepted with nothing but a few short moans. He accumulated the loud, clumsy specks of saliva and tears as if they were lovely to his face. More importantly though, he held her down."

"I am haunted by humans."

"I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality, but what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race- that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant. None of those things, however, came out of my mouth. All I was able to do was turn to Liesel Meminger and tell her the only truth I truly know. I said it to the book thief and I say it now to you. I am haunted by humans."

"I carried [Rudy] softly through the broken street...with him I tried a little harder [at comforting]. I watched the contents of his soul for a moment and saw a black-painted boy calling the name Jesse Owens as he ran through an imaginary tape. I saw him hip-deep in some icy water, chasing a book, and I saw a boy lying in bed, imagining how a kiss would taste from his glorious next-door neighbor. He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It's his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry."

"His soul sat up. It met me. Those kinds of souls always do - the best ones. The ones who rise up and say "I know who you are and I am ready. Not that I want to go, of course, but I will come." Those souls are always light because more of them have been put out. More of them have already found their way to other places."

"A human doesn't have a heart like mine. The human heart is a line, whereas my own is a circle, and I have the endless ability to be in the right place at the right time. The consequence of this is that I'm always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both. Still, they have one thing I envy. Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die."

"Trust me, though, the words were on their way, and when they arrived, Liesel would hold them in her hands like the clouds, and she would wring them out, like the rain."

"He's a monster, lord!" "He's a son of Poseidon. Just like... well, just like me." "No! Monster! Horse-eater! Not trusted!" "I'll give you sugar cubes at the end of the race." "Sugar cubes?" "Very big sugar cubes. And apples. Did I mention the apples?"

"I told Tantalus to go chase a doughnut."

"“The real story of the Fleece: there were these two children of Zeus, Cadmus and Europa, okay? They were about to get offered up as human sacrifices, when they prayed to Zeus to save them. So Zeus sent this magical flying ram with golden wool, which picked them up in Greece and carried them all the way to Colchis in Asia Minor. Well, actually it carried Cadmus. Europa fell off and died along the way, but that's not important." "It was probably important to her.”"

"Hermes gazed up at the stars. "My dear young cousin, if there's one thing I've learned over the eons, it's that you can't give up on your family, no matter how tempting they make it. It doesn't matter if they hate you, or embarrass you, or simply don't appreciate your genius for inventing the Internet--”"

"Everywhere we went, dead Confederate sailors stared at us, their ghostly bearded faces shimmering over their skulls. They approved of Annabeth because she told them she was from Virginia."

""Before I could figure out how to apologize for being such an idiot, she tackled me with a hug, then pulled away just as quickly. "I'm glad you're not a guinea pig." "Me, too." I hoped my face wasn't as red as it felt."

"What Luke told you back on the Princess Andromeda, about starting the world from scratch.. that really got to you, huh?" "My fatal flaw. That's what the Sirens showed me. My fatal flaw is hubris." "That brown stuff they spread on veggie sandwiches?" "No, Seaweed Brain. That's hummus. Hubris is worse." "What could be worse than hummus?" "Hubris means deadly pride, Percy. Thinking you can do things better than anyone else... even the gods."

"Don't you ever feel like, what if the world realy is messed up? What if we could do it all over again from scratch? No more war. Nobody homeless. No more summer reading homework." "I'm listening." "I mean, the West represents a lot of the best things mankind ever did-that's why the fire is still burning. That's why Olympus is still around. But sometimes you just see the bad stuff, you know? And you start thinking the way Luke does: 'If I could tear this all down, I would do it better.' Don't you ever feel that way? Like you could do a better job if you ran the world?" "Um... no. Me running the world would kind of be a nightmare."

"I'm just a kid Chiron. What good is one lousy hero against something like Kronos?" "What good is one lousy hero? Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain said something like to me once, just before he single-handedly changed the course of your Civil War."

"Families are messy. Immortal families are eternally messy. Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we're related for better or for worse...and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum."

"Damn it, Jackson. Do you have any idea how hard Colchis bulls are to come by?"

""It's okay, Ms. Jackson." Annabeth smiled reassuringly. Her blond hair was tucked into a ski cap and her gray eyes were the same color as the ocean. "We'll keep him out of trouble." Mom seemed to relax a little. She thinks Annabeth is the most levelheaded demigod ever to hit eighth grade. She's sure Annabeth often keeps me from getting killed. She's right, but that doesn't mean I have to like it."

"“Hey, can I see that sword you were using?" I showed him Riptide, and explained how it turned from a pen into a sword just by uncapping it. "Cool! Does it ever run out of ink?" "Um, well, I don't actually write with it." "Are you really the son of Poseidon?" "Well, yeah." "Can you surf really well, then?" I looked at Grover, who was trying hard not to laugh. "Jeez, Nico," I said. "I've never really tried." He went on asking questions. Did I fight a lot with Thalia, since she was a daughter of Zeus? (I didn't answer that one.) If Annabeth's mother was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, then why didn't Annabeth know better than to fall off a cliff? (I tried not to strangle Nico for asking that one.) Was Annabeth my girlfriend? (At this point, I was ready to stick the kid in a meat-flavored sack and throw him to the wolves.)”"

"Wow," Thalia muttered. "Apollo's hot." "He's the sun god," I said. "That's not what I meant."

"I don't have much time," my mom said. "Percy, whatever you decide, I love you. And I know you'll do what's best for Annabeth." "How can you be sure?" "Because she'd do the same for you."

"This is why I don't use mortals. They are unreliable." "They are weak-minded, easily bought, and violent. I love them."

""Grover was sniffing the wind, looking nervous. He fished out his acorns and threw them into the sand, then played his pipes. They rearranged themselves in a pattern that made no sense to me, but Grover looked concerned. "That's us," he said. "Those five nuts right there." "Which one is me?" I asked. "The little deformed one," Zoe suggested. "Oh, shut up.”"

"Well then, why are you on this quest?" "Artemis has been captured." "Oh, Artemis. Please. Talk about a hopeless case. I mean, if they were going to kidnap a goddess, she should be breathtakingly beautiful, don't you think? I pity the poor dears who have to imprison Artemis. Bo-ring!" "But she was chasing a monster. A really, really bad monster. We have to find it!" "Always some monster. But my dear Percy, that is why the others are on this quest. I'm more interested in you. "Annabeth is in trouble." "Exactly!" "I have to help her"

"There is always a way out for those clever enough to find it.""

"I don't know," she admitted. "But thank you for rescuing me." "Hey, no big deal. We're friends." "You didn't believe I was dead?" "Never."

"I will not have a sea creature destroyed, if I can help it. And I can help it."

"In each case, your loved ones have been used to lure you into Kronos's traps. Your fatal flaw is personal loyalty, Percy. To save a friend, you would sacrafice the world."

""I'll fill you in later," Chiron said with forced cheerfulness. "The important thing is you have prevailed. And you saved Annabeth!" Annabeth smiled at me gratefully, which made me look away."

""You are okay?" he asked. "Not eaten by monsters?" "Not even a little bit." I showed him that I still had both arms and both legs, and Tyson clapped happily. "Yay!" he said. "Now we can eat peanut butter sandwiches and ride fish ponies! We can fight monsters and see Annabeth and make things go BOOM!" I hoped he didn't mean all at the same time, but I told him absolutely, we'd have a lot of fun this summer."

"I didn't think-. Well, I didn't think you liked heroes." "Because of that little spat I had with Hercules? Honestly, I get so much bad press because of one disagreement." "Didn't you try to kill him, like, a lot of times?" "Water under the bridge, my dear. Besides, he was one of my loving husband's children by another woman. My patience wore thin, I'll admit it."

"Percy, I was kidding myself. All that planning and reading, I don't have a clue where we're going." "You're doing great. Besides, we never know what we're doing. It always works out. Remember Circe's island?" "You made a cute guinea pig." "And Waterland, how you got us thrown off that ride?" "I got us thrown off? That was totally your fault!" "See? It'll be fine."

"She looked like she was ready for a fight. Her fists were balled, but I thought I heard a quiver in her voice. Suddenly I realized that despite her angry attitude, she was afraid of me. She probably thought I was going to fight her control of the river, and she was worried she would lose. The thought made me sad. I felt like a bully, a son of Poseidon throwing his weight around. I sat down on a tree stump. "Okay, you win.""

"New lesson class," I announced. "Most monsters will vaporize when sliced with a celestial bronze sword. This change is perfectly normal, and will happen to you right now if you don't BACK OFF!"

"Be careful of love. It'll twist your brain around and leave you thinking up is down and right is wrong."

"It isn't easy being a brilliant inventor. Always alone. Always misunderstood. Easy to turn bitter, make horrible mistakes. People are more difficult to work with than machines. And when you break a person, they can't be fixed."

"You deal with mythological stuff for a few years, you learn that paradises are usually places where you get killed."

"Annabeth stood still as a statue. She could've said thank you. She could've promised to throw some barbeque on the brazier for Hera and forget the whole thing. But she clenched her jaw stubbornly. She looked just the way she had when she faced the Sphinx-like she wasn't going to accept an easy answer, even if it got her in serious trouble. I realized that was one of the things I liked best about Annabeth."

"My mother made a squeaking sound that might've been either "Yes" or "Help". Poseidon took it as a yes and came in. Paul was looking back and forth between us, trying to read our expressions. Finally he stepped forward. "Hi, I'm Paul Blofis." Poseidon raised an eyebrow and then shook his hand. "Blowfish, did you say?" "Ah, no. Blofis, actually." "Oh, I see," Poseidon said. "A shame. I quite like blowfish. I am Poseidon." "Poseidon? That's an interesting name." "Yes, I like it. I've gone by other names, but I do prefer Poseidon." "Like the god of the sea." "Very much like that, yes" "Well!" My mother interrupted. "Um, were so glad you could drop by. Paul, this is Percy's father." "Ah." Paul nodded, though he didn't look real pleased. "I see." Poseidon smiled at me. "There you are, my boy. And Tyson, hello, son!" "Daddy!" Tyson [shouted] […] Paul's jaw dropped. He stared at my mother. "Tyson is..." "Not mine," she promised. "It's a long story.""

"Dad, when I was in the maze, I met Antaeus. He said... well, he said he was your favorite son. He decorated his arena with skulls and-" "He dedicated them to me. And you are wondering how someone could do something so horrible in my name. Percy, lesser beings do many horrible things in the name of the gods. That does not mean we gods approve it. The way our sons and daughters act in our names... well it usually says more about them than it does about us. And you, Percy, are my favorite son."

"Please, man," I said. "It would mean a lot. For old times' sake?" He whimpered. "As I recall, in the old times we almost died a lot. But okay, here goes nothing."

"With great power... comes great need to take a nap. Wake me up later."

"Annabeth ran in right behind him, and I'll admit my heart did a little relay race in my chest when I saw her. It's not that she tried to look good. We'd been doing so many combat missions lately, she hardly brushed her curly blond hair any more, and she didn't care what clothes she was wearing - usually the same old orange camp T-shirt and jeans, and once in a while her bronze armour. Her eyes were stormy grey. Most of the time we couldn't get through a conversation without trying to strangle each other. Still, just seeing her made me feel fuzzy in the head. Last summer, before Luke turned into Kronos and everything went sour, there had been a few times when I thought maybe... well, that we might get past the strangle-each-other phase."

"Annabeth wiped a tear from her cheek. "I'm glad you're not dead, Seaweed Brain." "Thanks," I said. "Me too.""

"I found myself staring at her, which was stupid since I'd seen her a billion times. She and I were about the same height this summer, which was a relief. Still, she seemed so much more mature. It was kind of intimidating. I mean, sure, she'd always been cute, but she was starting to be seriously beautiful."

"I was losing the fight. The pain was too much. My hands and feet were melting into the water, my soul was being ripped from my body. I couldn't remember who I was. The pain of Kronos's scythe had been nothing compared to this. The cord, a familiar voice said. Remember your lifeline, dummy! Suddenly there was a tug at my lower back. The current pulled at me, but it wasn't carrying me away any more. I imagined the string in my back keeping me tied to the shore. "Hold on, Seaweed Brain." It was Annabeth's voice, much clearer now. "You're not getting away from me that easily." The cord strengthened."

"In a flash I understood what had happened. He'd been trying to stab me. Judging from the position of his blade, he would've taken me - maybe by sheer luck - in the small of my back, my only weak point. Annabeth had intercepted the knife with her own body."

""So... You had the courage to visit the Styx. I had to pressure Luke in many ways to convince him. If only you had supplied my host body instead... But no matter. I am still more powerful. I am a TITAN!!"

""You're cute when you get worried, your eyebrows get all scrunched together." "You are not going to die while I owe you a favour. Why did you take that knife?" "You would've done the same for me." It was true. I guess we both knew it."

"How did you know?" "Know what?" "My Achilles spot. If you hadn't taken that knife, I would've died." "I don't know, Percy. I just had this feeling you were in danger. Where... where is the spot?" I wasn't supposed to tell anyone. But this was Annabeth. If I couldn't trust her, I couldn't trust anyone. "The small of my back." "Where? Here?" She put her hand on my spine, and my skin tingled. I moved her fingers to the one spot that grounded me to my mortal life. A thousand volts of electricity seemed to arc through my body. "You saved me. Thanks." She removed her hand, but I kept holding it. "So you owe me. What else is new?"

"You know what would help this boy? Farming." "Mother-" "Six months behind a plough. Excellent character building."

"Well...sure good to be together again. Arguing. Almost dying. Abject terror. Oh, look. It's our floor."

"I picked up the jar. The spirit of Hope fluttered inside, trying to warm the cold container. "Hestia, I give this to you as an offering." "I am the least of the gods. Why would you trust me with this?" "You're the last Olympian. And the most important." "And why is that, Percy Jackson?" "Because Hope survives best at the hearth. Guard it for me and I won't be tempted to give up again.""

"My son here convinced me that perhaps I should prioritize my list of enemies. As much as I dislike certain upstart demigods, it would not do for Olympus to fall. I would miss bickering with my siblings. And if there is one thing we agree on-it is that you were a TERRIBLE father."

"I wouldn't worry too much. The last Great Prophecy about you took almost seventy years to complete. This one may not even happen in your lifetime." "Maybe, but it didn't sound so good." "No. It certainly didn't. She's going to make a wonderful Oracle!"

"She raised an eyebrow. "You got something to say to me, Seaweed Brain?" "You'd probably kick my butt." "You know I'd kick your butt." I brushed the cake off my hands. "When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable . . . Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal." Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. "Yeah?" "Then up on Olympus," I said, "when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking—" "Oh, you so wanted to." "Well, maybe a little. But I didn't, because I thought—I didn't want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking . . ." My throat felt really dry. "Anyone in particular?" Annabeth asked, her voice soft. I looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile. "You're laughing at me," I complained. "I am not!" "You are so not making this easy." Then she laughed for real, and she put her hands around my neck. "I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it."

"You're still my best friend." He grinned. "Except for Annabeth." "That's different." "Yeah," he agreed. "It sure is."

"So we call the Gods by their Greek names because that's their original form. But saying their Roman aspects are exactly the same-that's not true. In Rome, they became more warlike. They didn't mingle with mortals as much. They became harsher, more powerful-the Gods of an empire." "Like the dark side of the gods?" "Not exactly. They stood for discipline, honor, strength-"

"You named him Festus? You know that in Latin, 'festus' means 'happy'? You want us to ride off to save the world on Happy the Dragon?"

"I'm the son of Jupiter! I'm a child of Rome, consul to demigods, praetor of the First Legion. I slew the Trojan sea monster, I toppled the black throne of Kronos and and destroyed the Titan Krios with my own hands. And now I'm going to destroy you, Porphyrion, and feed you to your own wolves."

"He called us...what, demigods?" "Don't know what demi means, but I'm not feeling too godly. You guys feeling godly?"

"A street sign labeled the road to the main gate as VIA PRAETORIA. The other road, cutting across the middle of camp, was labeled VIA PRINCIPALIS. Under those markers were hand-painted signs like BERKELEY 5 MILES; NEW ROME 1 MILE; OLD ROME 7280 MILES; HADES 2310 MILES (pointing straight down); RENO 208 MILES; and CERTAIN DEATH: YOU ARE HERE!"

"Until that morning, her brother Nico had been the most powerful demigod she knew. The others at Camp Jupiter saw him as a traveling oddball, about as harmless as the fauns. Hazel knew better. She hadn't grown up with Nico, hadn't even known him very long. But she knew Nico was more dangerous than Reyna, or Octavian, or maybe even Jason. Then she'd met Percy. At first, when she saw him stumbling up the highway with the old lady in his arms, Hazel had thought he might be a god in disguise. Even though he was beat up, dirty, and stooped with exhaustion, he'd had an aura of power."

"Pluto's cool. It's not his fault he runs the Underworld. He just got bad luck when the gods were dividing up the world, you know? Jupiter got the sky, Neptune got the sea, and Pluto got the shaft."

"Banks can be robbed. Building can burn down. Strange things conspire when one tries to cheat fate."

"There! A prophecy. You can add it to your books, engrave it on your floor, whatever." "This says, 'Go to Alaska. Find Thanatos and free him. Come back by June twenty-fourth or die.'" "Yes. Is that not clear?" "Well, my lord... prophecies are usually unclear. They're wrapped in riddles. They rhyme, and..." "Yes?" "The prophecy is clear! A quest!"

"Oh, I'm strictly nonviolent. I can act in self-defense, but I won't be drawn into any more Olympian aggression, thank you very much. I've been reading about Buddhism. And Taoism. I haven't decided between them." "But... Aren't you a Greek goddess?" "Don't try to put me in a box, demigod! I'm not defined by my past."

""What are these guys?” he whispered."

"Your mom used to tell me this Chinese proverb. Eat bitter-" "Eat bitter, taste sweet. I hate that proverb." "But it's true. What do they call it these days-no pain, no gain? Same concept. You do the easy thing, the appealing thing, the peaceful thing, mostly it turns out sour in the end. But if you take the hard path-ah, that's how you reap the sweet rewards. Duty Sacrafice. They mean something."

"Fair.. You'd be amazed how often I hear that word, Frank Zhang, and how meaningless it is. Is it fair that your life will burn so short and bright? Was it fair when I guided your mother to the Underworld? No. Not fair. And yet it was her time. There is no fairness in Death. If you free me, I will do my duty."

"Annabeth put her knee to Percy's chest. She pushed her forearm against his throat. She didn't care what the Romans thought. A white-hot lump of anger expanded in her chest-a tumor of worry and bitterness that she'd been carrying around since last autumn. "If you ever leave me again," she said, her eyes stinging, "I swear to all the gods-" Percy had the nerve to laugh. Suddenly the lump of heated emotions melted inside Annabeth. "Consider me warned," Percy said. "I missed you, too.""

"He had no idea where the stereotype of dumb giggly blondes came from. Ever since he'd met Annabeth at the Grand Canyon last winter, when she'd marched toward him with that Give me Percy Jackson or I'll kill you expression, Leo thought of blondes as much too smart and much too dangerous."

"She loved the architecture here. The houses and gardens were very beautiful, very Roman. But she wondered why beautiful things had to be wrapped up with evil history. Or was it the other way around? Maybe the evil history made it necessary to build beautiful things, to mask the darker aspects."

"Hercules was a bitter, selfish jerk. He'd hurt too many people, and he wanted to keep on hurting them. Maybe he'd had some bad breaks. Maybe the gods had kicked him around. But that didn't excuse it. A hero couldn't control the gods, but he should be able to control himself."

"Percy didn't feel powerful. The more heroic stuff he did, the more he realized how limited he was. He felt like a fraud. I'm not as great as you think., he wanted to warn his friends. His failures, like tonight, seemed to prove it. Maybe that's why he had started to fear suffocation. It wasn't so much drowning in the earth or the sea, but the feeling that was sinking into too many expectations, literally getting in over his head."

"Annabeth thought she knew pain. She had fallen off the lava wall at Camp Half-Blood. She'd been stabbed in the arm with a poison blade on the Williamsburg Bridge. She had even held the weight of the sky on her shoulders. But that was nothing compared to landing hard on her ankle."

"Stay where I can see you." "What are we, kids?" "Kids are baby goats. They're cute, and they have redeeming social value. You are definitely not kids."

"Percy, let me go. You can't pull me up." His face was white with effort. She could see in his eyes that he knew it was hopeless. "Never"

"Percy tightened his grip on Annabeth's wrist. His face was gaunt, scraped and bloody, his hair dusted with cobwebs, but when he locked eyes with her, she thought he had never looked more handsome. "We're staying together," he promised. "You're not getting away from me. Never again." Only then did she understand what would happen. A one-way trip. A very hard fall. "As long as we're together.""

""Janus and his doorways. He would have you believe that all choices are black or white, yes or no, in or out. In fact, it's not that simple. Whenever you reach the crossroads, there are always at least three ways to go... four, if you count going backward."

"I'll succeed. And Hecate? I'm not choosing one of your paths. I'm making my own. We're going to find a way to stop Gaea. we're going to rescue our friends from Tartarus. We're going to keep the crew and the ship together, and we're going to stop Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood from going to war. We're going to do it all." "Interesting. That would be magic worth seeing."

""It's natural to feel fear. All great warriors are afraid. Only the stupid and the delusional are not. But you faced your fear, my son. You did what you had to do, like Horatious. This was your bridge, and you defended it."

"Your beloved has unleashed a special curs-a bitter thought from someone you abandoned. You punished an innocent soul by leaving her behind in solitude. Now her most hateful wish has come to pass: Annabeth feels her despair. She, too, will perish alone and abandoned."

"Oh, did you expect me to play fair? I am the God of love. I am never fair. [...] "Is this guy Love or Death?" "Ask your friends. Frank, Hazel, and Percy met my counterpart, Thanatos. We are not so different. Except Death is sometimes kinder."

"If this invisible guy was Love, Jason was beginning to think Love was overrated. He liked Piper's version better-considerate, kind, and beautiful. Aphrodite he could understand. Cupid seemed more like an enforcer."

"What have the demigods given you? They have erased your old self, everything you were. Titans and giants... we are meant to be the foes of the gods and their children. Are we not?" "Then why did you heal the boy?" "I have been wondering that myself. Perhaps because the girl goaded me, or perhaps... I find these two demigods intriguing. They are resilient to have made it so far. That is admirable. Still, how can we help them any further? It is not our fate." "Perhaps. But... do you like our fate?" "What a question. Does anyone like his fate?"

"Maybe love was no match for ice... but Piper had used it to wake a metal dragon. Mortals did superhuman feats in the name of love all the time. Mothers lifted cars to save their children. And Piper was more than just mortal. She was a demigod. A hero."

"This took so long to make." "You can't rush perfection." "Yes, but will it work?" "Getting out, no problem. But to get back I'll need Festus and-" "What?" "Festus. My bronze dragon. Once I figure out how to rebuild him, I'll-" "You told me about Festus. But what do you mean get back?" "Well.. to get back here, duh. I'm sure I said that." "You most definitely did not." "I'm not gonna leave you here! After you helped me and everything? Of course I'm coming back."

"I am the mother of all terrors! The Fates themselves! Hecate! Old Age! Pain! Sleep! Death! And all of the curses! Behld how newsworthy I am!"

"You remind of my own children, Jason Grace. You have blown from place to place. You are undecided. You change day to day. If you could turn the wind sock, which way would it blow?" "Excuse me?" "You say you need a navigator. You need my permission. I say you need neither. It is time to choose a direction. A wind that blows aimlessly is of no use to anyone."

"So what if he was a hero? So what if he did something brave? Evil was always here, regenerating, bubbling under the surface. Percy was no more than a minor annoyance to these immortal beings. They just had to out wait him."

"Okay, maybe monsters kept coming back forever. But so did demigods. Generation after generation, Camp Half-Blood had endured. And Camp Jupiter. Even separately, the two camps had survived. Now, if the Greeks and Romans could come together, they would be even stronger. There was still hope."

"Get in the elevator. I'll hold the button." "Yeah, right! You promised, Seaweed Brain. We would not get separated! Ever again!" "You're impossible!" "Love you too!"

"Tartarus was in a class all by himself. He was more powerful than the gods or Titans. Demigods were nothing to him. If Percy charged to help Bob, he would squashed like an ant. But Annabeth also knew that Percy wouldn't listen. He couldn't leave Bob to die alone. That just wasn't him-and that was one of the many reasons she loved him, even if he was an Olympian sized pain in the podex. "We'll go together.""

"Annabeth Chase, LXX: Annabeth, p. 527"

"His mother's unkept promise was at the core of who he was. He'd built his whole life around the irratation of her words, like the grain of sand at the center of a pearl. People lie. Promises are broken. That was why, as much as it chafed him, Jason followed rules. He kept his promises. He never wanted to abandon anyone the way he'd been abandoned and lied to."

"When she died, the words would probably be written on her tombstone: There were too many of them."

"As always, the subject of Bianca lay between them like a loaded gun-deadly, easy to reach, impossible to ignore."

"You could make even the most terrifying topic easier to talk about by framing it as something that happened to a couple of Cherokee hunters hundreds of years ago."

"We're going to run out there together." "Then what?" "I have no idea." "Gods, I hate it when you lead."

"You've got the wrong impression." "You've got the wrong impression, if you think you can attack me and take me captive. Where are my friends?" "Unharmed, right where you left them. Look, it's three to one and your hands are tied." "You're right. Get another six of you in here and it might be a fair fight."

"My mother showed me the truth. I was fighting against my own nature, and it brought me nothing but misery. Giants are not meant to love mortals or gods. Gaea helped me accept what I am. Eventually we all must return home, Praetor. We must embrace our past, no matter how bitter and dark."

"Atlantis?" "That's a myth." "Uh... don't we deal in myths?" "No, I mean it's a made-up myth. Not, like, an actual true myth." "So this is why Annabeth is the brains of the operation, then?" "Shut up, Grace."

""You should've died for your crimes. That was the punishment. Instead you got exile. You should have stayed away. Your father Orcus may not approve of broken oaths. But my father Hades really doesn't approve of those who escape punishment." "Please!" That word didn't make sense to Nico. The Underworld had no mercy. It only had justice."

"Talking to enemy statues now? Futile. You have roughly two minutes of life." "Oh, but I don't abide by your time frame, giant. A Roman does not wait for death. She seeks it out, and meets it on her own terms."

"Never assume you're safe, and never, ever tempt the Fates by announcing that you think you're safe."

"You're late." "Sorry, Sunshine. Traffic was murder." "You are covered with soot. And you managed to ruin the clothes I made for you, which were impossible to ruin." "Well, you know. I'm all about doing the impossible."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, bad idea. Bad. No Cookie. You can't go back, Not by yourself. ~Eve"

"But I've been noticing lately that he is totally Hottie Mchott of Hotland ~Eve"

"Although, to be fair, she is cute as a button.(Why do we say that? What's so cute about a button, anyway?)"

"Boys I'd turn gay if they weren't so sexy ~Eve"

"Eve was still frowning at the pasta like she suspected it was going to do something clever, like try to escape from the pot. ~Claire"

"Eve: Right, pasta makes foam, good to know. Too hot. Way too hot."

"She had never thought of a guy's feet as sexy before. Not even movie-star feet. But Shane... There was no part of him that wasn't sizzle hot ~ Claire"

"Karma's a bitch, and so am I ~ Eve"

"Thank you He mimicked You're thanking that bitch? For what, Claire? For beating you? For trying to kill you? For killing my sister? Christ. First Michael, then you. I don't know any of you anymore." ~ Shane"

"Eve: Well punch him in the face and then run like hell."

"[Talking about Eve] Shane: You've seen that movie where the zombies eat people's brains?"

"So, are we at the lying point of the relationship already? Usually that comes after the exciting, hot and sexy honey-moon period."

"His feelings were too complicated this evening. He wanted to shared them, but wasn’t eager to begin the process of sifting through his own complicated emotions, even with the help that he knew his parents could give."

"No one mentioned such things; it was not a rule, but was considered rude to call attention to things that were unsettling or different about individuals."

"Better to steer clear of an occasion governed by a rule which would be so easy to break."

"It didn't worry him. How could someone not fit in? The community was so meticulously ordered, the choices so carefully made."

"But today we honor your differences.They have determined your future."

"But at the same time he was filled with fear. He did not know what his selection meant. He did not know what he was to become. Or what would become of him."

"His mind reeled. Now, empowered to ask questions of utmost rudeness-and promised answers-he could, conceivably (though it was almost unimaginable), ask someone, some adult, his father perhaps: "Do you lie?" But he would have no way of knowing if the answer he received was true."

"The Old were always given the highest respect."

"There's much more. There's all that goes beyond—all that is Elsewhere—and all that goes back, and back, and back. I received all of those, when I was selected. And here in this room, all alone, I re-experience them again and again. It is how wisdom comes. And how we shape our future."

"Honor," he said firmly. "I have great honor. So will you. But you will find that is not the same as power."

"He was left, upon awakening, with the feeling that he wanted, even somehow needed, to reach the something that waited in the distance. The feeling that it was good. That it was welcoming. That it was significant."

"We gained control of many things. But we had to let go of others."

"If everything's the same, then there aren't any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!"

"It's the choosing that's important, isn't it?"

"Now he saw another elephant emerge from the place where it had stood hidden in the trees. Very slowly it walked to the mutilated body and looked down. With its sinuous trunk it struck the huge corpse; then it reached up, broke some leafy branches with a snap, and draped them over the mass of torn thick flesh. Finally it tilted its massive head, raised its trunk, and roared into the empty landscape."

"My Instructors in science and technology have taught us about how the brain works," Jonas told him eagerly. "It's full of electrical impulses. It's like a computer. If you stimulate one part of the brain with an electrode, it-"’ He stopped talking. He could see an odd look on The Giver’s face. "They know nothing."

"Jonas tried to be brave. He remembered that the Chief Elder had said he was brave."

"They have never known pain, he thought. The realization made him feel desperately lonely."

"The agony of the fractured leg began to seem no more than a mild discomfort as The Giver led Jonas firmly, little by little, in the deep and terrible suffering of the past."

"Overwhelmed by pain, he lay there in the fearsome stench for hours, listened to the men and animals die, and learned what warfare meant."

"Jonas did not want to go back. He did not want the memories, didn't want the honor, didn't want the wisdom, didn't want the pain. He wanted his childhood again, his scraped knees and ball games. He sat in his dwelling alone, watching through the window, seeing children at play, citizens bicycling home from uneventful days at work, ordinary lives free of anguish because he had been selected, as others before him had, to bear their burden. But the choice was not his. He returned each day to the Annex room."

"There are so many good memories, The Giver reminded Jonas."

"In one ecstatic memory he had ridden a gleaming brown horse across a field that smelled of damp grass, and had dismounted beside a small stream from which both he and the horse drank cold, clear water. Now he understood about animals; and in the moment that the horse turned from the stream and nudged Jonas's shoulder affectionately with its head, he perceived the bonds between animal and human."

"He had walked through woods, and sat at night beside a campfire. Although he had through the memories learned about the pain of loss and loneliness, now he gained, too, an understanding of solitude and its joy."

"I liked the feeling of love," [Jonas] confessed. He glanced nervously at the speaker on the wall, reassuring himself that no one was listening. "I wish we still had that," he whispered. "Of course," he added quickly, "I do understand that it wouldn't work very well. And that it's much better to be organized the way we are now. I can see that it was a dangerous way to live."

"..."Still," he said slowly, almost to himself, "I did like the light they made. And the warmth.""

"Do you love me?"

"There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then Father gave a little chuckle. "Jonas. You, of all people. Precision of language, please!""

"What do you mean? Jonas asked. Amusement was not at all what he had anticipated."

"Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it has become almost obsolete, his mother explained carefully."

"Jonas stared at them. Meaningless? He had never before felt anything as meaningful as the memory."

"Things could change, Gabe," Jonas went on. "Things could be different. I don't know how, but there must be some way for things to be different."

"But now Jonas had experienced real sadness. He had felt grief. He knew that there was no quick comfort for emotions like those."

"It was a game he had often played with the other children, a game of good guys and bad guys, a harmless pasttime that used up their contained energy and ended only when they all lay posed in freakish postures on the round. He had never recognized it before as a game of war."

"Jonas felt a ripping sensation inside."

"The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared."

"For the first time, he heard something that he knew to be music. He heard people singing. Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps, it was only an echo."

"It was not safe to spend time looking back."

"Yeah. Rose." Jill sighed and stared vacantly ahead. "She's all he sees when he closes his eyes. Flashing dark eyes and a body full of fire and energy. No matter how much he tries to forget her, no matter how much he drinks ... she's always there. He can't escape her."

"Adrian paled and went perfectly still as he stared at the newcomer, and in that moment, all my hopes for him came crashing down. Earlier, I’d been certain that if Adrian could just stay away from his past and any traumatic events, he’d be able to find a purpose and steady himself. Well, it looked like his past had found him, and if this didn’t qualify as a traumatic event, I didn’t know what did. Adrian’s new research partner stepped through the door, and I knew the uneasy peace we’d just established in Palm Springs was about to shatter. Dimitri Belikov had arrived."

"It ends with all of us dead, doesn’t it? she asked Little Pete. It ends when evil wins and we all surrender. The sad thing was, they were already lost, all of them."

"Of course he’s evil, Brittney enthused. Of course! Evil, good, there’s no difference, don’t you see that? They’re the same thing. Like me and Drake. Yin and yang, Sam. Two in one, a duality."

"Power would go to whoever won this fight. Still Caine hesitated. A big, warm bed. A beautiful girl to share it with. Food. Water. Everything he needed, just a few miles away on the island. The logical, rational answer was obvious. Which is why the world stays messed up, Caine said under his breath. People aren’t rational."

"God doesn’t ask for human sacrifices, Astrid said. Doesn’t He? Brittney smirked. What am I, Astrid? What are any of us? And what was Jesus? A sacrifice to appease a vengeful God, Astrid. Astrid had nothing to say. She knew all the right answers. But the will was gone. Did she herself even believe in God anymore? Why argue over a phantom? They were two fools arguing over lies."

"Do you really want to kill a little boy? No matter what your so-called God tells you, isn’t it wrong? When your beliefs tell you to murder, doesn’t a voice inside you tell you it is wrong?"

"Right and wrong doesn’t come from God. It’s inside us. And we know it. And even if God appears right in front of us, and tells us to our faces to murder, it’s still wrong."

"You were right, it’s one big open-air asylum. Virtue nodded solemnly and glanced back at the church. Yeah, but there’s a couple of saints mixed in with the crazies."

"Strength, confidence, humility, love. Hector Ricardo's four tenets of a happy life."

"If you ever know a man who tries to drown his sorrows, kindly inform him his sorrows know how to swim."

"Being in love is a very strange thing. Your thoughts constantly drift towards this other person, no matter what you're doing...And on top of this constant dream state you're in, your stomach feels like it's connected to a bungee cord, and it bounces and bounces until it finally lodges itself next to your heart."

"Don't get too black. Black monkey. Where's my beautiful black baby child. You're a black man. You're a warrior. Jeremiah sighed and stared out over the block. All the things people had always said to him--yeah, he'd heard then again and again. But sometimes, looking in the mirror, he had no idea who he was or why he was in this world."

"Our doorman, Henry, waved when he saw me then rushed forward, holding an oversized umbrella over mine. We had lived on Eighty-Eighth and Central Park West since I was a baby. And since I was a baby, Henry had been running out from his post by the door with an oversized umbrella to greet us when it rained. It didn't matter if we were carrying our own umbrellas."

"I glanced down at my Percy uniform, wondering if the administration knew the burgundy jackets and gray skirts we had to wear were the same colors that many doormen in the city had."

"I had been staring at my program card, trying to figure out where room 301 or something was—looking from the program card to the numbers on the doors and I had run right into him, my math and science textbooks crashing to the floor. Then he was apologizing and I was apologizing and we were both bending at the same time to retrieve them. And then—we just stopped and burst out laughing."

"I couldn't stop looking at him, at his smile and his hair."

"From my room, I could lie across my bed and watch the cars rush along Central Park West. In a hurry to get someplace. Everyone in New York is in a hurry. You see businessmen walking fast, their heads bowed, the cuffs of their pants flapping hard against their ankles. They don't look at anyone. Once I followed this man, walking so close behind him I could have been his daughter—but he never even looked over and noticed me. For two blocks I walked like that beside him. It made me sad for him—that he could walk through this world without looking left or right."

"Jeremiah. Who did he go home to? Would he remember me? Had he seen it too, whatever it was that I saw when we looked at each other? What was it?"

"Marion laughed. She pulled a chicken-covered with rosemary and lemon slices from the oven. "Smells good, Marion." "Stop calling me Marion." "Stop calling me Elisha." "That's your name." "And Marion's yours." I smiled, pulling a sprig of rosemary from the chicken. It had been going on like this for years. She refused to call me Ellie, so I refused to call her Mom."

"He loved the light in his mama's kitchen. The yellow stained glass panes across the top of the windows buttered the room a soft gold—even now in the early evening with the rain coming down hard outside."

"She was pretty—his mama was. He'd always thought so. She wore her hair short, tied her hair up in pretty scarves. Tonight she was wearing an orange and yellow one, wrapped high like a turban. Her skin was dark like his and smooth. People said they had the same mouth—wide and soft. And the same eyes. His eyes were light brown like hers and people were always asking them if they wore contact lenses."

"He missed his grandmother more than anything. In February, it would be five years since she passed. Jeremiah twirled the saltshaker absently wondering how long it took before you stopped missing someone."

"Jeremiah watched her dance a hot loaf of bread from the oven to the table and wondered again how his father could have just fallen for someone else. Yeah, over and over, his father had tried to explain it to him, and each time Jeremiah thought he finally understood. But then he'd come home some evening and find his mother sitting in front of the television in the empty living room and his heart would tighten inside his chest. She looked lonely and lost sitting in the half-light."

"If this. If that. Would his life always be filled with "ifs"?"

"He pushed the plate of spaghetti away. He wasn't hungry anymore. Just tired. Tired of everything. Sometimes he wanted to scream—just stand in the middle of the street and holler."

"Change is a good thing, his grandma used to say. Think of it like seasons. You don't want to stay one way all your life and have moss grow under your toes."

"He could hear someone laughing. It sounded like the whole world—pointing at him … and laughing."

"I used to think it didn't matter—that everyone in this world had the same chance, the same fight. Imagine two babies born—one white, one black. Maybe their mothers shared the same hospital room and talked low—when all the excited visitors were gone and the hospital was heavy with sleep—about their futures. Talked about their dreams for the babies, long after the two A.M. feeding was over. I used to think that all those babies needed was some kind of chance—and a mother's dream for them. I was so … so silly back then. Naive. I believed stuff like that. Just because no one in this family had ever said a hateful thing about black people."

""All people," Marion was often saying. "All people have suffered. So why should any of us feel like we're better or less than another?"

"where were they then--these black people who were just like us--who were equal to us? Why weren't they coming over for dinner? Why weren't they playing golf with Daddy on Saturdays or quilting with Marion on Thursdays nights? Why weren't they in our world, around us, a part of us?"

"He found himself watching her when she wan't looking. Watching the way she used her hand to move her hair out of her face, slowly, wrapping her fingers around it and pulling it back behind her ear. The way she leaned over her notebook to write, a tiny frown between her eyebrows. And her smile—she had a sweet smile. Sweet and sad and something else too. He couldn't explain it. If anyone asked, he wouldn't be able to put into words to how he felt when Ellie looked at him and smiled. He felt something stop and start inside of him."

"He pulled his knapsack off his shoulders and stared up at the sky. It was beautiful today, all warm and gold. The leaves had begun to change, and the trees up and down the block cast pretty shadows over everything. He loved October. Had always loved it. There was something sad and beautiful about it—the ending and beginning of things."

"I don't know." He looked up at his father's window. "Sometimes I feel like I don't know nothing about nothing."

"Not reasons—excuses, I guess. We don't want our baby leaving the nest just yet. It makes us feel old." He stood up, reached over, and touched my cheek. "It reminds us that one day this house will be empty—no children, just two ancient people padding through it looking at pictures."

"Each day seemed to crawl slowly into the next and the next, and some nights I couldn't sleep with the excitement of a new day—and another chance to see Jeremiah. Maybe this was what love felt like."

"Maybe this was what love felt like. I turned the empty orange juice glass around in my hand. Was it lying that I didn't tell him Jeremiah was black? Why should that matter? Why did any of it matter?"

"He wanted more than that too—somebody deep. Somebody that could know him—know all of him—the crazy things he dreamed on stormy nights, when he woke with tears in his eyes and pulled the covers tight around him."

"I could see it. In your eyes. How scared you are. You've got the kind of eyes that don't hide anything."

"What's gonna happen is gonna happen. I mean, the feeling's still there even if you're covering it up."

"When Anne used to talk about being in love, she said it felt like someone wrapping you inside of them. And that's what I felt like now, like slowly I was being wrapped inside of Miah—inside his eyes, inside his voice, inside the way he talked about things."

"Two old women, walking arm in arm, eyes us. Jeremiah frowned, glaring at them."

"They asked that `cause you're with me,you know," he said, eyeing me. He looked hurt and angry all at once. "If you were with a white boy, they probably would have just smiled and kept on going."

"He wanted to go up to his room, lie on his bed, and think about Ellie. About today in the park. About the way her lips felt against his. Different. The same. Right. And his hand over hers—the brown and the white, her tiny fingers, the silver band on her thumb, her eyes, the way they just kept on looking and looking deeper and deeper inside of him. No one had ever looked at him like that, like they wanted to know every single thing about him. Like everything he had to say mattered. Really mattered."

"No one at Percy said anything. It was strange the way the students seemed to turn away from it, from him and Ellie holding hands on the Percy stairs. From his arm around Ellie's shoulder as they walked through the halls. Turn away from them kissing outside their classrooms. Sometimes Miah imagined their turning away in slow motion—the eyes cast downward, the heads moving slowly above the collars of the Percy uniforms."

"When I was little, Anne used to talk to me all the time about love. She said sometimes it happened slowly, an investment of work and time over months and years. She said that kind of love was sort of like the stock market—you put all of yourself into it and hope for a decent return. She said there were other kinds too—the quick-fix binge love—when a person bounced from person to person without taking a bit of time out to examine what went wrong with the last one. "And then there's Marion-Edward love," she said once, sitting across from me, her fingers against her mouth the way they always were when she was thinking. "When a person thinks they know someone and then boom—one day she just up and leaves. Thing is knowing and loving are different.""

"And sometimes," Anne said softly, "there's just plain love Ellie. No reason for it, no need to explain." Then she leaned back on the couch, crossed her ankle over her knee, and grinned. "Perfect love," she said. "And what's that like?" "When you'll find it, lil sis. You'll know."

"Some mornings, there is only this in the world—Jeremiah's hand reaching for my own. There isn't Marion's warning about time making changes we can't ever anticipate. Only Miah's hand in mine and a voice much louder than Marion's—my own—saying, Take this moment and run, Ellie."

"She made him feel all right. Everytime she smiled or kissed him or called his name in the hallway, he felt it. That everything everywhere was going to be all right."

"You know something? That first time when we were sitting in Central Park talking—and then you cut that Snickers bar in half and handed me that piece—I was thinking this is what I've waited forever for—you know—somebody I could talk to, somebody who got it the way you get me. And there you were, not even a foot away from me, listening and sharing your candy."

"Maybe you think you have all the answers now because of that boy, but you don't. You'll see how your life turns around on you and sets you down in some strange other place."

""Last Saturday, after they left the library, he and Ellie had been walking alone Fifth Avenue holding hands when these white boys started acting stupid--saying stuff like "jungle fever" and "who turned out the lights?" Miah had clenched his jaw and held tighter to Ellie's hand. Walk through the rain, Ellie had said."

"Sometimes he had a feeling deep, like there were certain people he'd never see again."

"I used to think my family would accept anybody," I said slowly. "No matter what color they were. i'm not so sure of that now." I looked at him and swallowed. "It scares me. I mean, a part of me doesn't want to find out."

"Times like that, I hate white people. Then I have to ask myself, How can I hate white people and love you?" He smiled. "And I don't know how to answer that."

"Marion and my father had been right—Percy Academy did get me into a good college. When the letter came, Marion held it up proudly. "A thick envelope," she said. "You know what that means." Yes, I knew what it meant. All spring the envelopes had been coming—thin ones meant one-page rejections. Thick ones meant acceptances and more paperwork."

"I think only once in your life do you find someone that you say, "Hey, this is the person I want to spend the rest of my time on this earth with." And if you miss it, or walk away from it, or even maybe, blink—it's gone."

"This is how the time moves—an hour here, a day somewhere, and then and then it's night and then it's morning. A clock ticking on a shelf. A small child running to school, a father coming home. Time moves over us and past us, and the feeling of lips pressed against lips fades into memory. A picture yellows at its edges. A phone rings in its empty room."

"Time comes to us softly, slowly. It sits besides us for a while. Then, long before we are ready, it moves on."

""As a matter of fact," Lauren said acidly, "the entire future of western civilisation depends upon me making a smiley face with this ketchup." "You realise some poor sod has to clean all that up?" James said."

"You told me I did a good job when I got back from Nebraska House," Kyle whined. "When you first got back, Kyle. Then two days later I hear from Jennifer Mitchum that the social workers want you punished. Something about filling someone's room up with sand and spraying Coke everywhere?" "Oh, that," Kyle said. "The guy was a dick."

"You said I was allowed to get suspended." "Yes," Ewart said. "But I didn't expect you to dunk a kid's head in a vat of baked beans. He's apparently got a nasty burn on his nose."

"I just got back from Celia Forester's funeral. I'm supposed to be writing up an official report for the Tempest she flew into the ground, since she's obviously not going to write it herself and I saw it happen. And also because I feel responsible. I know it wasn't my fault—I really do know that now. But I briefed her. We both had Tempests to deliver, and I'd flown one a couple times before. Celia hadn't. She took of ten minutes after me. If she'd taken off first, we might both still be alive."

"Horrible war. So much more horrible here than back in the States. Every few weeks someone's mother or brother or another friend is killed. And already I am fed up with the shortages, never any butter and never enough sleep. The combination of working so hard and the constant fear, and just the general blahness of everything—I wasn't prepared for it. But how could I possibly, possibly have been prepared for it? They've been living with it for five years."

"Careless talk costs lives."

"Incredible. It is just incredible that you can notice something like that when your face is so cold you can't feel it anymore, and you know perfectly well you are surrounded by death, and the only way to stay alive is to endure the howling wind and hold your course. And still the sky is beautiful."

"Five years of destruction and mayhem, lives lost everywhere, shortages of food and fuel and clothing—and the insane mind behind it just urges us all on and on to more destruction. And we all keep playing."

"[W]ords on a page are like oxygen to a petrol engine, firing up ghosts."

"Your brain does amazing acrobatics when it doesn't want to believe something."

"Lift is made when the air pressure under a wing is greater than the air pressure over the wing. Then the wing gets pushed upward. That's how birds fly. That's how kites fly—a kite is basically just a solitary wing. That's how airplanes fly. But people need lift, too. People don't get moving, they don't achieve great heights, without something buoying them up."

"Things don't magically take off and fly just because it's a little windy."

""It needs thrust," I said. "You have to run with it. Can you run?" She [Róża] gave me a dirty look. Then she broke out into the bubbly champagne laugh. She turned and ran, limping but steady. She laughed over her shoulder, letting out line as I held the kite over my head. "Run with me, Rose," she cried."

"I have never read a book that humanized history as well as Elizabeth Wein’s Rose Under Fire has."

"Rose Under Fire is one hell of a book. It’s a powerful, emotionally resonant historical novel about remembering and about surviving, and I truly appreciate and value that."

"Faction customs dictate even idle behavior and supersede individual preference. I doubt all the Erudite want to study all the time, or that every Candor enjoys a lively debate, but they can't defy the norms of their factions any more than I can."

"The uniform pounding of feet in my ears and the homogeneity of the people around me makes me believe that I could choose this. I could be subsumed into Abnegation's hive mind, projecting always outward."

"I think it's important to protect people. To stand up for people. Like you did for me."

"Every time I think about the word "Divergent", I hear Tori's warning—and now my mother's warning too. Don't tell anyone. Dangerous."

"I don't reward preying on the weak. That is cowardice."

"The Dauntless-born initiates are like a pack of dogs. If I act the wrong way, they won't let me run with them."

"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 charged with electricity. I am pure adrenaline."

"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."

"I sniff, wipe my face one more time, and smooth down my hair. "Do I look like I've been crying?" I say. "Hmm." He leans in close, narrowing his eyes like he's inspecting my face. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. Even closer, so we would be breathing the same air—if I could remember how to breathe. "No, Tris," he says. A more serious look replaces his smile as he adds, "You look tough as nails.""

"His straight eyebrows are drawn low over his eyes. My stomach writhes, partly because I know he makes a good point but I don't want to admit it, and partly because I want something I don't know how to express; I want to press against the space between us until it disappears. I nod. "But please, when you see an opportunity…" He presses his hand to my cheek, cold and strong, and tilts my head up so I have to look at him. His eyes glint. They look almost predatory. "Ruin them." I laugh shakily. "You're a little scary, Four." "Do me a favor," he says, "and don't call me that." "What should I call you, then?" "Nothing." He takes his hand from my face. "Yet.""

"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 people 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."

"Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up."

"I will be my undoing If I become my obsession."

"Dishonesty is a veil that shields one person from another."

"Intelligence is a gift, not a right. It must be wielded not as a weapon but as a tool for the betterment of others."

"We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another."

"“Divergent” clearly has thrills, but it also movingly explores a more common adolescent anxiety — the painful realization that coming into one’s own sometimes means leaving family behind, both ideologically and physically."

"Tris is not your usual Mary Sue. She’s selfish. She’s manipulative. She’s vindictive as hell – and I LOVED that about this book."

"One choice can destroy you"

"I nod. Its sounds like a good plan—a smart plan. But I don't believe him—I don't believe it's more important to move forward that to find out the truth. When I found out that I was Divergent…when I found out that Erudite would attack Abnegation…those revelations changed everything. The truth has a way of changing a person's plans."

"Tobias Eaton is a powerful name."

"You are not your parents. You are a sixteen-year-old girl—" I grit my teeth. "How dare you—" "—who doesn't understand the value of sacrifice lies in its necessity, not in throwing your life away! And if you do that again, you and I are done." I wasn't expecting him to say that. "You're giving me an ultimatum?" I try to keep my voice down so the others can't hear. He shakes his head. "No, I'm telling you a fact." His lips are just a line. "If you throw yourself into danger for no reason again, you will have become nothing more than a Dauntless adrenaline junkie looking for a hit, and I'm not going to help you do it." He spits the words out bitterly. "I love Tris the Divergent, who makes decisions apart from faction loyalty, who isn't some faction archetype. But the Tris who's trying as hard as she can to destroy believe you're still in there," he says against my mouth. "Come back."

"Breathing—who cares about breathing? I turn from the sight, listening to my heart beat in my ears. Christina's mouth moves. I ignore her, and walk to the door and down the stairs and down the hallway and into the elevator. The doors close and as I drop to the earth, just as Marlene did a"

"I read somewhere, once, that crying defies scientific explanation. Tears are only meant to lubricate the eyes. There is no real reason for tear glands to overproduce tears at the behest of emotion. I think we cry to release the animal parts of us without losing our humanity. Because inside me is a beast that snarls and growls, and strains toward freedom, toward Tobias, and above all, toward life. And as hard as I try, I cannot kill it. So I sob into my hands instead."

"I'm going to die tomorrow. It has been a long time since I felt certainty about anything, so this feels like a gift. Tonight, nothing. Tomorrow, whatever comes after life."

"My toes are cold. My feet stick to the tiles. We turn a corner, and I hear muffled shouts. At first I can't tell what the voice is saying, but as we draw closer, it takes shape. "I want to…her!" Tobias. "I…see her!" I glance at Peter. "I can't speak to him on last time, can I?" Peter shakes his head. "There's a window, though. Maybe if he see's you he'll finally shut up." He takes me down a dead-end corridor that's only six feet long. At the end is a door, and Peter is right, there's a small window near the top, about a foot above my head. "Tris!" Tobias's voice is even clearer here. "I want to see her!" I reach up and press my hand to the glass. The shouts stop, and his face appears behind the glass. His eyes are red; his face, blotchy. Handsome. He stares at me for a few seconds and then presses his hand to the glass so it lines up with mine. I pretend I can feel the warmth of it through the window."

"Peter slips an electrode beneath the collar of my shirt and presses it to my chest, right over my heart. He then attaches a wire to the electrode and switched on the heart monitor. I hear my heartbeat, fast and strong. Soon, where that steady rhythm was, there will be nothing. And then rising from within me is a single thought: I don't want to die."

"I look around. We are inside the incinerator, which would be completely dark if not for the lines of light glowing in the shape of a small door on the other side. The floor is solid metal in some places and metal grating in others. Everything smells like rotting garbage and fire. "Don't say I never took you anywhere nice," Peter says. "Wouldn't dream of it," I say."

""Got that gun?" Peter says to Tobias. "No," says Tobias, "I figured I would shoot the bullets out of my nostrils, so I left it upstairs."

""I don't…" I sound like I am being strangled. "My family is all dead, or traitors; how can I…" I am not making any sense. The sobs take over my body, my mind, everything. He gathers me to him, and bathwater soaks my legs. His hold is tight. I listen to his heartbeat and, after a while, find a way to let the rhythm calm me. "I'll be your family now," he says."

"ONE CHOICE WILL DEFINE YOU"

"I squeeze her shoulder with one hand and run my other hand over her hair, still surprised when her hair stops above her neck instead of below it. I was happy when she cut it, because it was hair for a warrior and not a girl, and I knew that was what she would need."

""Can we do it please? I would like to avoid having to break you out of prison," I say. Suddenly desperate for comfort, I reach for Tris's hand, and she brings her fingers up to meet mine. We are not people who touch each other carelessly; every point of contact between us feels important, a rush of energy and relief."

"I know what my mother is—she is someone for whom the end of a thing justifies the means of getting there, the same as my father, and the same, sometimes, as me."

"Why do you care? I ask myself. He betrayed you. He didn't try to stop your execution. I don't care. I do care. I don't know."

"I thought that when I received Christina's forgiveness, the hard part of Will's death would be over. But when you kill someone you love, the hard part is never over. It just gets easier to distract yourself from what you've done."

"This isn't about what would they would want, Tris."

"It's strange how time can make a place shrink, make its strangeness ordinary."

"My mother wasn't a fool," I say. "She just understood something you didn't. That it's not sacrifice it it's someone else's life you're giving away, it's just evil." I take another step and say, "She taught me all about real sacrifice. That it should be done from love, not misplaced disgust for another person's genetics. That it should be done from necessity, not without exhausting all other options. That it should be one for people who need your strength because they don't have enough of their own."

"Can I be forgiven for all I've done to get here? I want to be. I can. I believe it."

"I keep finding myself stifled by the company of others and then crippled by loneliness when I leave them. I am terrified and I don't even know of what, because I have lost everything already."

"People talk about the pain of grief, but I don't know what they mean. To me, grief is a devastating numbness, every sensation dulled."

"There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved, for the sake of something greater. But sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain, and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life. That is the sort of bravery I must have now."

"Yeah, sometimes life really sucks," she says. "But you know what I'm holding on for?" I raise my eyebrows. She raises hers too, mimicking me. "The moments that don't suck," she says. "The trick is to notice them when they come around."

"Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We can't escape that damage. But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other."

"If this is the last message I send you… well, let's just say I hope you burn for this."

"There’s no way to please everyone, because that mythical book with the ending that every single person wants can’t exist—you want different things, each one of you. The only thing I can do, in light of that fact, is write an honest story as best I can."

"I thought about reaching out with my authorial hand and snatching her from that awful situation. I thought about it and I agonized over it. But to me, that felt dishonest and emotionally manipulative. This was the end she had chosen, and I felt she had earned an ending that was as powerful as she was."

"[P]erhaps, taking a cue from Dauntless, Veronica Roth’s intent was to be brave in how she ended the story."

"Not everything needs to have a happily ever after and it fits (for me) that Allegiant doesn’t."

"There's really no fun in being sensible all the time, Diana."

"Don't grudge Anne Cordelia her fancies, Diana. I'm always sorry for children who don't spend a few years in fairyland."

"Such a lovely day... made for us," said Diana. "I'm afraid it's a pet day though... there'll be rain tomorrow."

"Such a nice swishy petticoat," sighed Nan. "When I grow up will I have tafty petticoats like that, Mummy?"

"Not even a husband's funeral could damp Clarice down long," said Agatha Drew. "There was nothing solid about her. Always dancing and singing."

"Of course it sounds very foolish. Dreams do sound so foolish when they are put into cold brutal words."

"Who are you? What do you look like? Do you have one head or two? More? Do you have light brown skin like I do or smooth gray skin like a dolphin or spiky green skin like a cactus? Do you live in a house? I live in a house. My name is Alex Petroski and my house is in Rockview, Colorado, United States of America, planet Earth. I am eleven years and eight months old and the United States is two hundred forty-two years old and Earth is 4.5 billion years old. I’m not sure how old my house is."

"What do you guys do when you can’t fall asleep? Are you sleeping right now? I guess not, because how would you be listening to this if you were sleeping? I guess that means we’re both awake..."

"Ronnie used to tell me to man up whenever he saw me cry. He’d tell me to stop crying, nobody likes a crybaby, and I try but I can’t help it sometimes. Sometimes the clouds inside my head get big and gray and swirly and then I hurricane through my eyes. Except I don’t literally hurricane through my eyes—I don’t actually have a weather system in my head."

"[To the ticket inspector at the Amtrak station] I told him I'm more responsible than a lot of thirteen-year-olds I know. I said I’m more responsible than even a lot of fourteen-year-olds. But he said it doesn’t matter, the only thing that matters is your real age, and I said that’s really stupid because kids are different. They should give everyone a test to see how responsible they are and then give them a responsibility age. I know I’d be at least thirteen then because I can already cook and take care of a dog."

"But my hero also said that knowledge is better than ignorance, and it’s better to find out and embrace the truth even if that truth might not feel good. I wanted to put my best foot forward just like my hero, but I believe in the truth too, so that’s why I’m telling you guys what happened . . . why I’m telling you my rocket crashed."

"You can’t steal the stars, because even the closest ones are trillions of miles away and nobody owns them."

"What’s a social worker, is it someone whose job it is to go on Twitter?"

"What the heck is a dad anyway? I mean, if you’re talking about a biological dad I had one, but what about a non-biological dad? If it’s someone to protect you from bad stuff that happens and someone you can help mow the lawn and clean the house, then I have Ronnie and Terra, and if it’s someone you can look up to and follow in their footsteps, then I have my hero Dr. Sagan, and if it’s someone who you can laugh and drive places with, then the guys did that too, so what’s the difference? And why is it that the more I think about that word—dad—the less I know what it means? It’s the same with words like love and truth and bravery too, the more I think about them and say them over, the less sense they make. Love. Truth. Bravery. Bravery. Truth. Love. It’s like, I know those things are out there, I know they exist, but the more I think about them the more it feels like they’re all talking about a lot of different things put together, or they’re talking about the same thing, but... what?"

"The rocket was lit up on the screen and standing straight and tall by itself, and I thought about how one day there’s going to be another big rocket, one that I made with help from a lot of my friends, and this Golden iPod is going to be on it."

"Um... hello, being from... outer space? I don't know what to say."

"[Ranting about her mother] Sometimes parents don’t want to accept that their kids are growing up. They think if we grow up, then we stop being their kids or something. But that’s their whole job! It’s to raise us to be independent! They just have such a hard time facing it, you know? Facing the truth."

"There's a part of it (love) that's, like, letting go. Like a sacrifice but in a good way. You trade a part of yourself for something that's even bigger than you, and it feels good but weird at the same time. It's totally worth it, though."

"[Alex is hospitalized] God I hate hospitals. I’m not allowed to see him yet. The nurse said they’re not sure how long he’ll be in Recovery before they can move him. And it wasn’t doing me any good just waiting there, I was totally useless."

"Sometimes when we really love someone we have to leave them, because it’s better for them than if we stayed. (Ronnie)"

"Hi my name is Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way and I have long ebony black hair (that's how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips that reaches my mid-back and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Amy Lee (AN: if u don't know who she is get da hell out of here!). I'm not related to Gerard Way but I wish I was because he's a major fucking hottie. I'm a vampire but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I'm also a witch, and I go to a magic school called Hogwarts in England where I'm in the seventh year (I'm seventeen). I'm a goth (in case you couldn't tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black leather miniskirt, pink fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eye shadow. I was walking outside Hogwarts. It was snowing and raining so there was no sun, which I was very happy about. A lot of preps stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them."

"Then he put his thingie into my you-know-what and we did it for the first time."

""WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU MOTHERFUKERS!" It was….Dumbledore!"

"”Why did you do such a thing, you mediocre dunces?" asked Professor McGonagall."

"In the Great Hall, I ate some Count Chocula cereal with blood instead of milk, and a glass of red blood."

"We started frenching passively and we took off each others clothes enthusiastically. He felt me up before I took of my top. Then I took off my black leather bra and he took off his pants. We went on the bed and started making out naked and then he put his boy's thingy in mine and we HAD SEX. (c is dat stupid?)"

""What is it that you desire, you ridiculous dimwit!" Snape demeaned angrily in his cold voice but I ignored him."

"AN: stop flaming ok! I dntn red all da boox! dis is frum da movie ok so itz nut my folt if dumbeldor swers! besuizds I SED HE HAD A HEDACHE! and da reson snap dosent lik harry now is coz hes christian and vampire is a satanist! MCR ROX!"

"Then all of a suddenly, an horrible man with red eyes and no nose and everything started flying towards me on a broomstick! He didn't have a nose (basically like Voldemort in the movie) and he was wearing all black but it was obvious he wasn't gothic. It was… Voldemort!"

""Crookshanks!" I shouted at him. Voldemort fell of his broom and started to scream. I felt bad for him even though I'm a sadist so I stopped."

"Voldemort gave me a gun. “No! Please!” I begged."

""How did you know?" I asked in a surprised way. Voldemort got a dude-ur-so-retarded look on his face. "I hath telekinesis." he answered cruelly."

"AN: stup it u gay fags if u donot lik ma story den fukk off! ps it turnz out b'loody mary isn't a muggle afert al n she n vampire r evil datz y dey movd houses ok!"

"I knew Draco was probably slitting his wrists (he wouldn't die because he was a vampire too and the only way you can kill a vampire is with a c-r-o-s-s (there's no way I'm writing that) or a steak) and Vampire was probably watching a depressing movie like The Corpse Bride."

"I put on a black leather shirt that showed off my boobs and tiny matching miniskirt that said Simple Plan on the butt. You might think I'm a slut but I'm really not."

"Snap was spying on me and he was taking a video tape of me! And Loopin was masticating to it! They were sitting on their broomsticks. "EW, YOU FUCKING PERVS, STOP LOOKING AT ME NAKED! ARE YOU PEDOS OR WHAT!" I screamed putting on a black towel with a picture of Marilyn Mason on it."

""Abra Kedavra!" he yelled at Snape and Loopin pointing his womb. I took my gun and shot Snape and Loopin a gazillion times and they both started screaming and the camera broke. Suddenly, Dumblydore ran in. "Ebony, it has been revealed that someone has - NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" he shouted looking at Snape and Loopin and then he waved his wand and suddenly… Hargrid ran outside on his broom and said everyone we need to talk."

"I MAY BE A HOGWARTS STUDENT…." Hargirid paused angrily. "BUT I AM ALSO A SATANIST!"

"BECAUSE…BECAUSE…." Hargid said and he paused in the air dramitaclly, waving his wand in the air. Then swooped he in singing to the tune of a gothic version of a song by 50 Cent. "Because you're goffic?" Snap asked in a little afraid voice cause he was afraind it meant he was connected with Satan. "Because I LOVE HER!"

"AN: stop f,aing ok hargrid is a pedo 2 a lot of ppl in amerikan skoolz r lik dat I wunted 2 adres da ishu!"

""That's not a spell that's an MCR song." I corrected him wisely."

"U c, Enobby," Dumblydore said, watching the two of us watching the flame. "2 c wht iz n da flmes(HAHA U REVIEWRS FLAMES GEDDIT) u mst find urslf 1st, k?"

"We both looked at each other for some time. Harry had beautiful red gothic eyes so much like Dracos. Then… we jumped on each other and started screwing each other. "STOP IT NOW YOU HORNY SIMPLETONS!" shouted Professor McGoggle who was watching us and so was everyone else. "Vampire you fucker!" I said slapping him. "Stop trying to screw me. You know I loved Draco!" I shouted and then I ran away angrily. Just then he started to scream. "OMFG! NOOOOO! MY SCAR HURTS!""

"SPECIAL FANGZ 2 RAVEN MY GOFFIX BLOOD SISTA WTF UR SUPPOZD 2 RIT DIS!11111111 HEY RAVEN DO U KNOW WHERE MY SWEATER I"

""Dumbledore Dumblydore!" we both yelled. Dumbledore came there. "What is it that you want now you despicable snobs?" he asked angrily. "Volsemort has Draco!" we shouted at the same time. He laughed in an evil voice. "No! Don't! We need to save Draco!" we begged. "No." he said meanly. "I don't give a darn what Voldemort does to Draco. Not after how much he misbehaved in school especially with YOU Ebony." he said while he frowned looking at me. "Besides I never liked him that much anyway." then he walked away. Vampire started crying. "My Draco!" he moaned. (AN: don't u fik gay guyz r lik so hot!)"

"WARNING: SUM OF DIS CHAPTA IS XTREMLY SCRAY. VIOWER EXCRETION ADVISD."

""Snaketail what art thou doing?" called Voldemort. Then… he started coming!"

"He had a sex-pack (geddit cuz hes so sexah) and a really huge you-know-what and everything."

"We ran happily to Hogsmede. There we saw the stage where GC had played. We ran in happly. MCR were there playing 'Helena'. I was so fucking happy! Gerard looked even sexier than he did in da pictures. Even Draco thought so, I could totally see him getting an erection but it didn't matter cuz I knew know that we were da only true ones for eachother. I was wearing a black leather minidress and black leather platinum boots with red ripped fishnets. Draco was wearing a black baggy MCR t-shirt and black baggy pants. Anyway, we stated moshing to Helena. We frenched. We ran up 2 the front of the band to stage-dive. Suddenly, Gerard pulled off his mask. So did the others. We gasped. It wasn't them at all. It was.,….. Volsemort and da Death Dealers!"

"B'loody Mary was standing there. "Hajimemashite gurl." she said happily (she spex Japanese so do i. dat menz 'how do u do' in japanese). "BTW Willow that fucking poser got expuld. she failed al her klasses and she skepped math." (an: RAVEN U FUKIN SUK! FUK U!) "It serves that fuking bich right." I laughed angrily. Well anyway we where felling all deprezzed. We wutsched some goffic movies like Das niteMARE b4 xmas. "Maybe Willow will die too." I said. "Kawai." B'loody Mair shook her head enrgtically lethrigcly. "Oh yeah o have a confession after she got expuld I murdered her and den loopin did it with her cause he's a necphilak." "Kawai." I commnted happily . We talked to each other in silence for da rest uv da movie."

""Hey bitch you look kawaii." she said. "Yah but not as kawaii as you." I answered sadly cause Willow's really pretty and everything. She was wearing a short black corset-thingy with blood red lace on it and a blak blood-red miniskirt, leather fish-nets and black poiny boots that showed off how pale she wuz. She had a really nice body wif big bobs and everything. She was thin enouff 2 be anorexic."

"Gerard was da sexiest guy eva! He locked even sexier den he did in pix. He had long raven blak hair n piercing blue eyes. He wuz really skinny and he had n amazing ethnic voice. We moshed 2 Helena and sum odder songz. Sudenly Gerard polled of his mask. So did the other membez. I gasped. It wasn't Gerard at all! It was an ugly preppy man wif no nose and red eyes... Every1 ran away but me and Draco. Draco and I came. It was….Vlodemort and da Death Deelers!"

"U moronic idiots!" he shooted angstily. "Enoby, I told u to kill Vampire. Thou have failed. And now….I shall kill thou and Draco!"

"Sudenly a gothic old man flu in on his broomstick. He had lung black hair and a looong black bread. He wus werring a blak robe dat sed 'avril lavigne' on da back. He shotted a spel and Vlodemort ran away. It was…DUMBLYDORE!"

"Da night before Draco and I rent back to the skull (geddit skull koz im goffik n I like deth). Dumbeldore chased Vlodemort away. We flew there on our brooms. Mine was black and the broom-stuff was blood-red. There was lace all over it. Draco had a black MCR boom. We went back to our rooms and we had you-know-what to a Linkin Park song."

"I whipped and whepped as my blody eyeliner streammed down my cheeks and made cool tears down my feces like Benji in the video for Girls and Bois (raven that is soo our video!). I TOOOK OUT A CIGARETE END STARTED TO smoke pot."

"Well anyway, I put on some black eyesharow, black eyeliner, and some black lipstick and white foundation. Then I went. Den I gasped….Snake and Loopin were in da middle of da empty hall, doin it, and Dobby was watching!1 "Oh my god you ludacris idiot!" they both shooted angrily when they saw me. Dobby ran away crying. Dey got up, though. Normally I wood have ben turned on (I luv cing guyz do it) but both of them were fuking preps."

""WTF is that why u wanted condoms?" I asked sadistically. (c I speld dat)"

""WTF where'd Draco?" I asked him. "Oh he's bein a fucking bastard. He told me he wouldn't cum." Vampire said shaking his hed. "U wanna cum with me? 2 the concert?" Then….. he showed me his flying car. I gasped. It was a black car. He said his dogfather Serious Blak had given it 2 him. The license plate on the front sed MCR666 on it. The one on da back said 'ENOBY' on it."

"Draco was crying in da common room. "Draco are u okay?" I asked in a gothic voice. "No I'm not u fuking bitch!" he shouted angrily. He stated to run out of the place in a suicidal way. I stated to cry cuz I was afraid he would commit suicide. "Its ok Enoby." said Vampire comfortly. "Ill make him feel better." "U mean you'll go fuck him wont you!" I shouted angrily. Then I ran 2 get Draco. Vampire came too. "Draco please come!" he began to cry. Tears of blood came down his pail face. I wuz so turned on cuz I love sensitive bi guyz. (if ur a homophone den fuk of!)"

"And then….. we herd sum footsteps! Vampire got out his blak invincibility coke. We both gut under it. We saw the janitor Mr. Norris there, shouting angrily with a flashlight in his hand. "WHOSE THERE!" he shouted angrily. We saw Filth come. He went unda da invisibility cloke and started to meow loudly."

"Oh all right." I said smiling. "But you have to tell me why your being all erective."

"THE BARK LORD IS PLANNING TO KILL THE STUDENTS!" yelled Cornelia Fudge. "YOU ARE NOT FIT TO BE THE PRINCIPAL ANY LONGER!" yelled Rumbridge. "YOU ARE TOO OLD AND YOUR ALZHEIMERS IS DANGEROUS! YOU MUST RETRY OR VOLDEMORT WILL KILL YOUR STUDENTS!"

"MR. WAY WHAT THE BEEP ARE YOU DOING!" Rumbridge shouted angrily. Dumbledore blared at her. "Oops she made a mistake!" he corrupted her. "She means hi everybody cum in!"

"You fucking bustard!" yelled Draco at Vampire. "I want to shit next to her!1"

""No fuck you motherfucker she laves me not you!" shouted Vampire. And then… he jumped on Draco! (no not in dat way u perv) They started to fight and beat up each other."

""No!" he laughed crudely. "Kill him, or I shall kill him anyway!" Then he flew away cackling."

""No!" I screamed sexily. Suddenly I locked up and stopped having the vision."

"Everyfing's all right Enoby." said Vampire all sensetive. "No its not!" I shouted angrily. Tearz of blood went down my face. "OMFG what if I'm getting possessed like in Da Ring 2!"

"OK class fucking dismissed every1." Proffesor Trevolry said and she let every1 go. "Except for you Britney." she pointed at Britney and sum other preps. "Please do exorcize (geddit) 1 on page 3."

""Okay you can go now, see ya cunt." said Proffesor Sinister. "Bye bitch." I said waving."

"We started tiling of each other's cloves fevently. He took of my blak thong and my black leather bar. I took of his black boxers. Then… he put his trobbing you-know-what in my tool sexily. "OMFG Draco Draco!" I screamed having an orgism. We stated frenching passively."

"Sire are dads have been shot!" Draco said while we wipped sum tears from his white face. "Enoby had a vision in a dreem." Dubleodre started to cockle. "Hahahaha! And How due u aspect me to know Ebony's not divisional?" I glared at Dumbledore. "Look motherfucker." he said angrily as Dumbeldore gasped (c is da toot of crakter). "U know very well that I'm not decisional. Now get some fucking ppl out there to look for Series and Lucian- pornto!" "Okay." he said in a intimated voice. "Were are they?" I fought about it. Then all of a sudden….. "Longdon."

"He went and called some people and did some stuff. After a few mistunes he came back and said people were going out looking for them."

"Cum on Enoby." said Proffesor Sinatra. She was wearing a gothic blak leader dress with a corset top and real vampir blood on it and fuking black platinum boots. "I have to tell you the fucking perdition."

"Then… I took off Draco's MCR shrift and seductvely took of his pants. He was hung lik a stallone. He had replaced the Vampire tattoo that said Enoby on it. Black roses were around it. I gasped. He lookd exactly lik Gerard Way. Vampire took a vido camera. (I had sed it wuz ok b4). I took of my clothes den we were in 4 da rid of r lif. We started freching as we climbed into the cofin. He put his spock in my you-know-what and passively we did it. "I love you Eboby. Oh let me feel u I need 2 feel u." he screamed as we got an orgasm. We watched Vampire filmed everything perfectly. Suddenly…. "WHAT THE FUCK R U DOING!" It was….Snope and Profesor McGoggle!111"

""Oh my satan!1" we screamed as we jamped out of da coffin. Snap and Professor McGoonagle started to shoot at us angrily. "CUM NOW!1!" Preacher McGongel yielded. We did guiltily. We left the room putting on our clothes. Snoop garbed the caramel and put it in his pocket."

""No!11" we screamed sadly. Snap stated loafing meanly. He took out a kamera anvilly. Then… he came tords Darko!1!"

""What the fuck r u doing!" I shooted arngrily. Snoop laughed meanly. He polled down his pants. I gasped- there was a Dork Mark on his you-know-wut!11!"

"You ridiculus dondderhed!111" Snoop yielded. He took off all of Drico's clothes. Just as he was about to rape him…. "Crosio!" I shited pointing my wound. Snoop scremed and started running around da room screming. Meanwhile I grabed my blak mobile and sent a txt 2 Serious. I stopped doing crucio. "You dunderhed!111 Im going to kill-" shooted Snape but suddenly Serverus came. Snake put the whip behind his bak. "Oh hello Sev I wuz just teaching them sumthing."

""You look fucking kawaii, bitch." B'loody Mary said. "Fangs." I said."

""Good luk!1" Everryone shooted. Darkess and Willow gave me deth's touch sin. Then….. I jumped sexily in2 da Pensive. Suddenly I was in fornt of teh School. In front of me wuz one of da sexiest goth guyz I had ever seen. He was wering long blak hair, kinda like Mikey Way only black. He had gren eyes like Billie Joe Amstrung and pale whit skin. He wuz wearing a blak ripped up suit wif Vans. It was….Tom Bombodil!1111"

""u go to this skull?"(geddit cos im goffik) he asked. "yah that's why im here im NEW." I SMELLED HAPPili."

""What happened 2 Snipe?" I growled. "U will see." Draco giggled mistressly. He opened a door…Snap nd Lumpkin werz there!11 Serious waz pokering dem by staging dem wif a blak nife. "NOOOO PLZ!1111" Lumpkin bagged as Serious started 2 suk his blood. I laffed statistically."

"I put on some blak platform high heelz. Darko put on 'desolition liverz' by MCR. Den….we storted 2 take of eachotherz clozez. I tok of his shit nd he had a six-pak, lolz. We started 2 mak out lik in Da Grudge. He pot his wetnes in my u-know-what sexily. I gut an orgy. "Oh Draco!111111!1 Oh mi fuking gud Draco!1111" I screemed passively as he got an eructation. "I luv u TaEbory." he whispred sexily and den we fel aspleep lol."

"Sorious cocked on da door. I hopened it. "Hi Ibony." he said. "Gezz wut u have 2 cum 2 Profesor Sinistor's office.""

"So what the fuck happened 2 Snipe and Loopin?" I asked Sorious flirtily. "I fucking tortured them." he answered in a statistic way. "They r in Abkhazian now, lol."

"Where r Draco and Vampira?" I muttered. "Dey are xcused form skool 2day." Sodomize moaned sexily. "Rite now they are watching Da Nigtmare b4 Xmas."

"Whose he!11" I asked. "Oh, datz Profesor Slutborn." Satan said. "He's da Portents teacher…..Ebony?" "Yah?" I asked. "Did u know dat Marylin Mason is playing in Hogsemade tonight? And they r showing The Exercise at da movies b4 dat."

""ORLY." I ESKED."

"Were calld XBlakXTearX. I play teh gutter. Spartacus plays da drums" he said ponting to him. "Snap plays the boss. And Jamez plays the guitar to even fo we call him Samaro, after Samara in da ring."

""Hey bastards." I told them they gave me Dethz tuch sin. Suddenly I gasped again. "But don't u have a lead singer!" I asked. Lucian looked dawn sadly. "We uzd to but she did. She contempted suicide by silting her rists." "Oh my fuking god!11 Datz so fuking sad!1" I gasped. "Its okay but we need a new led snigger." Samaro said. "Wel…..I said Im in a bnad myself." "Rilly?" asked Snap. I cudnt belive it. He used 2 b goffik!111"

""Yeah were called Blody Gothik Rose 666. Do u wanna hr me sing?" Yeah said everyone. So the guys tok out der guitarz. They began to pay a song bi (geddit koz bi guyz r sooo sexah!11) Gurn Day."

"I walked outside wondering how I kud go forward in time. Suddenly someone jumped in fornt of me. It wuz…..Morty Mcfli!1 He was wering a blak bnad tshrit and blak bagy jeans. "What da hell r u dong here!11" I asked. "I wil help u go frowad in tim Enoby." he said siriusly Den….he took out a blak tim machine. I went in2 it and…..sudenly I wuz forward in tim!111"

""OMFS, letz have a groop kutting session!11" said Profesor Trevolry."

"We went sexily to Potionz class. But Snap wasn't there. Instead there was…Cornelio Fuck!11111 "Hey where the fuck is Dumblydore!111" Draco shouted angrily. "STFU!1" shooted Cornelia Fuck. "He is in Azkhabian now wif Snip and Loopin he is old and week he has kancer. "Now do ur work!111""

""HARGRIF WUT DA FOK R U DOING!11" he shooted. I looked around….Hairgrid wuz putting sumfing in my glass of blod!11 Darko and Vampire started 2 beat him up sexily."

""Oh he's cumming." said Serious. "BTW u can kall me Hades now." Suddenly Satan came. He was wearing a smexxy blak leather Jackson, blak congres shoes, a Slipnot t-shirt and a blak tie."

"Satan and I walked 2 his car. It wuz a blak car wif pentagrams all over it. On da license plate said 666 just lik Draco's car. I went in it seduktivly. Stan started 2 drive it. We talked about Satanism (lolz he wuz named after Satan), kuttting, musik and being goffik."

""Kul." I raised my eye suggestingly. And den…. he tok of my cloves sexily and we started 2 make out. I tok of his shit. He had six-pak justr lik Gerard Way!11 We frenched. "Xcuze me but u r going 2 have 2 leave!111" shooted da lady behind us she was a prep. "Fuk u!11" I said. Suddenly…. I attaked her suking all her blood. "Noooooo!11" she screamed. All the preps in da theater screamed but everyone else crapped koz Satan and I loked so cute 2gether. Satan and I started to walk outside."

"Hey haz aneone fuking seen Draco?" I asked gothikally. "No Draco told me he wood be watching Hoes of Wax." said Profesor Trevolry. "He duzzn't know dat ur better. Anyway da norse said u could get up. Cum on!1"

""OMFG Enoby r u ok." He asked gothikally. "Yah Im okay 4 ur in4mation." I snapped sexily. "OMG am I dedd?" koz I remembered I had jumped in front off da bullet from Jame's gun. I also rememberd cing Drako doing it wif Snap!111"

""Who da fuck is that?" I asked angrly cos I did nut kno him. "Dis is…Hedwig!11" Sed Volximort. "He used to be in XBlackXTearX 2 but he had 2 dropp out koz he broke his arm. "Hey Hedwig." I said seductively evn tho I wuz nut tring to b. "Lol hi Enoby." He answered but then he ran away bcos he had hair of magical creature. He was humming Welcum 2 da Blak Prade under his breth( I no dat is not 80s but pretend it is ok!)"

"AN: omg da new book iz kumming out rlly soon I kant wait!1111. I fink dat snap will be really the same person as Volximort koz dey are both haff-blood so dat will explain y he kild dumblydore and he hated hairy!1111 nd den hairy wil have 2 kommit suicide so voldimort will die koz he will rilly be a horcrox!111 omg I hope draco nd harry get 2getha dat will be so shmexxy, wont it? If dey don't den JKR is hamophobic!111111 fangz 4 da help wiv facts, medusa u rok!111"

""Be quiet you Satanists." Dumbledore cockled. "If ur lucky I'll probably send u all to Akazaban! That will teach u to copolate in da Great Hall." He changed the song on da ipod 2 a n'Sync song. Suddenly I noticed sumfing strong about da Ipod. It was slowly chonging! Dumblydore didn't notece."

""You dunderheads!1111111111" screamed Dumbledore wisely as we went."

""Crucious!1" I shouted selectively pontificating my blak wand and she started screaming koz she was being tortured and I laughed sodistically."

"Draco began to take all of his cloves off and I could see his white sex-pack. Then Vampire took his own clotes off too. We all began making out 2gther sexily. I took off my blak leather bra, my blak lace thong and the rest of my clothes. Every1 took their glocks out except 4 me im a girl lol. "Oh mi satan! Draco!" I screamed as he put his hardness in my thingy Den he did da same fing to Harry. I began making out wiv Satan and he joined in. "OMS!111" cried Vampire. "Oh Vampire! Vampire!" I screamed screamed. "Oh Satan!" yelled Harry in pleasore. Loopin watched in shock. Wee took turns doing torture curses on him koz we were all sadists. Suddenly….. ….a big blak car that said 666 on the license plate flew strait through da windows. And Snap wuz in it!11"

""Dat's mi car!" shooted Draco angrily. But suddenly it was revealied who was in da car. It wuz….Snape!"

"What is da meaning of dis?" Dumblydore asked all angrily and Voldimort lookd away (bcos dumblydore is da only whizard he is scared of.) He did a spell and suddenly his broomstick came to him sexily. Volxemort flew above the roof evilly on his broomstik. "Oh my goth!" Slugborn gosped. (geddit kos im goffik) "The Dark Lord shall kill all of you. Then you must submit to him!" Snape ejaculated menacingly. "You fucking preppy fags!" Serious shouted angrily. "I know a four-letter word 4 dirt, CRUCIATUS!" screamed Harry but da sparks from his wand only hit Draco's car."

""Save us Ebony!" Dumbledark cried. I cried sexily I just wanted 2 go 2 the commen room and slit my wrists with mi friends while we watched Shark Attak 3 and Saw 2 and do it with Draco but I knew I had 2 do somefing more impotent. "ABRA KEDABRA!11111" I shooted."

"She was such a little girl that one did not expect to see such a look on her small face. It would have been an old look for a child of twelve, and Sara Crewe was only seven. The fact was, however, that she was always dreaming and thinking odd things and could not herself remember any time when she had not been thinking things about grown-up people and the world they belonged to. She felt as if she had lived a long, long time."

"I want her to look as if she wasn't a doll really," Sara said. "I want her to look as if she LISTENS when I talk to her. The trouble with dolls, papa"—and she put her head on one side and reflected as she said it—"the trouble with dolls is that they never seem to HEAR."

"I know you by heart. You are inside my heart."

"She was a child full of imaginings and whimsical thoughts, and one of her fancies was that there would be a great deal of comfort in even pretending that Emily was alive and really heard and understood."

"What I believe about dolls," she [Sara Crewe] said, "is that they can do things they will not let us know about. Perhaps, really, Emily can read and talk and walk, but she will only do it when people are out of the room. That is her secret. You see, if people knew that dolls could do things, they would make them work. So, perhaps, they have promised each other to keep it a secret. If you stay in the room, Emily will just sit there and stare; but if you go out, she will begin to read, perhaps, or go and look out of the window. Then if she heard either of us coming, she would just run back and jump into her chair and pretend she had been there all the time."

"I promised him I would bear it," she [Sara Crewe] said. "And I will. You have to bear things. Think what soldiers bear! Papa is a soldier. If there was a war he would have to bear marching and thirstiness and, perhaps, deep wounds. And he would never say a word—not one word."

"[W]e are just the same—I am only a little girl like you. It's just an accident that I am not you, and you are not me!"

"Never did she find anything so difficult as to keep herself from losing her temper when she was suddenly disturbed while absorbed in a book. People who are fond of books know the feeling of irritation which sweeps over them at such a moment. The temptation to be unreasonable and snappish is one not easy to manage."

"Sometimes I do pretend I am a princess. I pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and behave like one."

"Whats'ever 'appens to you—whats'ever—you'd be a princess all the same—an' nothin' couldn't make you nothin' different."

"How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it."

"EVERYTHING'S a story. You are a story—I am a story."

"When you will not fly into a passion people know you are stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wish they hadn't said afterward. There's nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in—that's stronger."

"Nothing but a doll—doll—doll! You care for nothing. You are stuffed with sawdust. You never had a heart. Nothing could ever make you feel. You are a DOLL!"

"If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it."

"I will beg your pardon for laughing, if it was rude," she [Sara Crewe] said then; "but I won't beg your pardon for thinking."

"[T]warn't for you, an' the Bastille, an' bein' the prisoner in the next cell, I should die. That there does seem real now, doesn't it? The missus is more like the head jailer every day she lives. I can jest see them big keys you say she carries. The cook she's like one of the under-jailers."

"Some very odd things happen in this world sometimes."

"The beggar girl was still huddled up in the corner of the step. She looked frightful in her wet and dirty rags. She was staring straight before her with a stupid look of suffering, and Sara saw her suddenly draw the back of her roughened black hand across her eyes to rub away the tears which seemed to have surprised her by forcing their way from under her lids. She was muttering to herself.Sara opened the paper bag and took out one of the hot buns, which had already warmed her own cold hands a little."See," she said, putting the bun in the ragged lap, "this is nice and hot. Eat it, and you will not feel so hungry."The child started and stared up at her, as if such sudden, amazing good luck almost frightened her; then she snatched up the bun and began to cram it into her mouth with great wolfish bites."Oh, my! Oh, my!" Sara heard her say hoarsely, in wild delight. "Oh, my!"Sara took out three more buns and put them down.The sound in the hoarse, ravenous voice was awful."She is hungrier than I am," she said to herself. "She's starving." But her hand trembled when she put down the fourth bun. "I'm not starving," she said—and she put down the fifth."

"[T]o be able to learn things quickly isn't everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people."

"There isn't any banquet left, Emily," she [Sara Crewe] said. "And there isn't any princess. There is nothing left but the prisoners in the Bastille."

"Do you wonder that she felt sure she had not come back to earth? This is what she saw. In the grate there was a glowing, blazing fire; on the hob was a little brass kettle hissing and boiling; spread upon the floor was a thick, warm crimson rug; before the fire a folding-chair, unfolded, and with cushions on it; by the chair a small folding-table, unfolded, covered with a white cloth, and upon it spread small covered dishes, a cup, a saucer, a teapot; on the bed were new warm coverings and a satin-covered down quilt; at the foot a curious wadded silk robe, a pair of quilted slippers, and some books. The room of her dream seemed changed into fairyland—and it was flooded with warm light, for a bright lamp stood on the table covered with a rosy shade."

"[I]t was just like Sara that, having found her strange good fortune real, she should give herself up to the enjoyment of it to the utmost. She had lived such a life of imaginings that she was quite equal to accepting any wonderful thing that happened, and almost to cease, in a short time, to find it bewildering."

"Here the Indian gentleman lost his temper. "As to starving in the streets," he said, "she might have starved more comfortably there than in your attic.""

"She saw through us both. She saw that you were a hard-hearted, worldly woman, and that I was a weak fool, and that we were both of us vulgar and mean enough to grovel on our knees for her money, and behave ill to her because it was taken from her—though she behaved herself like a little princess even when she was a beggar. She did—she did—like a little princess!"

"And, somehow, Sara felt as if she understood her, though she said so little, and only stood still and looked and looked after her as she went out of the shop with the Indian gentleman, and they got into the carriage and drove away."

"It is hoped that "The Little Princess" will find permanent lodging in New York among the plays to be seen "at night", for jaded playgoers will find here a pure spring where they may refresh themselves with clean and wholesome entertainment."

"When I wrote the story of "Sara Crewe" I guessed that a great deal more had happened at Miss Minchin's than I had had time to find out just then. I knew, of course, that there must have been chapters full of things going on all the time; and when I began to make a play out of the book and called it "A Little Princess" I discovered three acts full of things. What interested me most was that I found that there had been girls at the school whose names I had not even known before. There was a little girl whose name was Lottie, who was an amusing little person; there was a hungry scullery-maid who was Sara's adoring friend; Ermengarde was much more entertaining than she had seemed at first; things happened in the garret which had never been hinted at in the book; and a certain gentleman whose name was Melchisedec was an intimate friend of Sara's who should never have been left out of the story if he had only walked into it in time. He and Becky and Lottie lived at Miss Minchin's, and I cannot understand why they did not mention themselves to me at first. They were as real as Sara, and it was careless of them not to come out of the story shadowland and say, "Here I am—tell about me." But they did not—which was their fault and not mine. People who live in the story one is writing ought to come forward at the beginning and tap the writing person on the shoulder and say, "Hallo, what about me?" If they don't, no one can be blamed but themselves and their slouching, idle ways."

"A Little Princess is a modern version of a familiar fairy tale, and it has gained thematic and symbolic richness in Burnett's retelling."

"Another way of putting this might be to say that laughter is liberating; it allows at least a momentary respite from care and even hunger. Liberating laughter breaks down barriers: the scullery maiden and the "little princess" come together, or, in the case of Ermengarde and Sara, the clever and the dull come together. Laughter levels. It creates a true community. It also challenges authority. The power of laughter lies in its effective dismantling of power."

"A Little Princess […] critiques contemporary politics and social conditions that could produce 'forgotten' citizens. At an individual level, the heartlessness of some city residents is exposed, exemplified in its worst instance by Miss Minchin. More broadly, the failure of the middle class to act in assisting those drifting toward savagery is denounced."

"She [Sara Crewe] believes that if a young girl thinks she is a princess and performs the role at all times, then she is a princess. It is not the class position of the girl but her ability to commit herself to the role that makes her an authentic princess. Sara's storytelling allows the child to rewrite or re-imagine her class position such that she creates an identity for herself that cannot be touched by discipline and punishment."

"Particularly against the backdrop of her schoolmates, then, Sara paradoxically embodies both the appropriateness of the class system (rich or poor, we are to acknowledge her as a "princess") and its injustice (at a moment's notice, she may be moved from one end of the social scale to the other). Her first conversation with Becky illuminates the novel's simultaneous egalitarianism and elitism[.]"

"I was a kid who loved to read. I read everything I could get my hands on. I didn't have one favorite book. I had lots of favorite books: The Borrowers by Mary Norton, Paddington by Michael Bond, A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Stuart Little by E. B. White, A Cricket in Times Square, all the Beverly Cleary books."

"Early in the novel, the narrator establishes Sara as a child better versed with narrative than social experiences: a child, that is, less trained in cultural codes of behavior than in imaginative scripts."

"The main character of A Little Princess, Sara Crewe, is clever, well behaved, noble, lovable and, in many respects, exemplary for young readers."