"The future development of children could not be accurately assessed at the tender age of 11. The strain upon parents and children of the competitive examination was too great. Once children were shepherded into the separate pens it was too difficult for those who developed late to transfer from one to another. Their chief interest was not, however, so much educational as social; the left-wingers claimed that to segregate the clever from the stupid was to deepen class divisions. They proposed that all children, irrespective of sex, race, creed, class (that was all right but they went on) or ability, should be lumped together."

"Exceptional brains require exceptional teaching....."

"As Sir Hartley Shawcross said in 1956 – ‘I do not know of a single member of the Labour Party, who can afford to do so, who does not send his children to a public school, often at great sacrifice – not for snobbish reasons or to perpetuate class distinction, but to ensure his children get the best’."

"There was no harm in the public schools imparting a superior education - it was all to the good; what was wrong was that the privileged were chosen by other criteria than merit. They were selected by their parents' bank accounts."

"[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 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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

""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."

"ONE CHOICE WILL DEFINE YOU"

""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."

"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 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."

"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."

"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"

"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."

"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 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."

"One choice can destroy you"

"Tobias Eaton is a powerful name."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

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

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

"“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."

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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 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.""

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

"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."

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

"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.""