Elite Quotes

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'

It turns out I'm absolutely terrible at staying away from you. It's a very serious problem.

Be true to yourself. But that's something everyone says and no one means. No one wants you to be yourself. They want you to be the version of yourself that they like.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

Love is beautiful fear

Sometimes I feel like we're a knot, too tangled to be taken apart.

You’ve changed me forever. And I’ll never forget you.

Simon looked from one of them to the other, and shook his head. “ When did you two get so buddy-buddy? Last night it was all, ‘I’m the most elite warrior!’ ‘ No, I’m the most elite warrior!’ And today you’re playing Halo and giving each other props for good ideas.

You know that you’ve found something amazing, and you want to hold on to it forever; and every second after you have it, you fear the moment you might lose it.

The irony of life is that those who wear masks often tell us more truths than those with open faces.

Embellish your flaws. They will turn into your assets.

It wasn’t like I made his world better. It was like I was his world. It wasn’t some explosion; it wasn’t fireworks. It was a fire, burning slowly from the inside out.

You cannot harden your heart to the future just because of your past. You cannot use cruelty against yourself to justify cruelty to others.

Everyone has darkness inside them, however hidden.

Once upon a time, a girl had a father, a prince, a society of friends. Then they betrayed her, so she destroyed them all.

I am tired of being used, hurt, and cast aside. It is my turn to use. My turn to hurt.

The Selection was no longer something that was simply happening to me, but something I was actively a part of. I was an Elite.

It is better to have an enemy who will fight you in an open field then a lover who will kill you in your sleep.

An elite confederacy of nerds. My peeps

America, there’s no question that you’ve had my heart from the beginning. By now you have to know that

America Singer, you get back here." He ran in front of me, wrapping an arm around my waist as we stood, chest to chest. "Tell me," he whispered. I pinched my lips together. "Fine, then I shall have to rely on other means of communication." Without any warning, he kissed me.

I should have proposed that night in your room." "I should have let you.

He must love you very much,' Gavril said once I had my footing. I couldn't look at him. 'What makes you say that?' Gavril sighed. 'I've known Maxon since he was a child. He's never stood up to his father like that.

No one wants you to be yourself. They want you to be the version of yourself that they like.

But true rulers are not born. We are made.

All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few, who are the loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least free of all.

Sorry, always sorry. What in the world can you buy with an apology?

I pledge myself to the Rose Society until the end of my days, to use my eyes to see all that happens, my tongue to woo others to our side, my ears to hear every secret, my hands to crush my enemies. I will do everything in my power to destroy all who stand in my way.

All I want is your promise to stay with me, to be mine. Sometimes it feels like you can't possibly be real. Promise me you'll stay.” "Por supuesto. I promise.

Darling, you’re perfect.

When red-headed people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.

After a lifetime of darkness, I want to leave something behind that is made of light.

It's the most wonderful and terrible thing that can ever happen to you," she said simply. "You know that you've found something amazing, and you want to hold on to it forever; and every second after you have it, you fear the moment you might lose it." I sighed softly. She was absolutely right. Love was beautiful fear.

We are drawn to stories,” he says in a soft voice, “and every scar carries one.

So. Tell me, little wolf. Do you want to punish those who have wronged you?

I’m going to follow her, of course,” Magiano says. “As the night sky turns. When she appears on the other side of the world, I will be there, and when she returns here, so will I.

Someday, when I am nothing but dust and wind, what tale will they tell about me?

He shrugged. "The same as any other. It's a way to make people feel better about themselves. Everyone likes feeling special. Being part of an elite group is a way to do that." "But you weren't part of it?" "No need. I already know I'm special.

I kind of wanted someone to rearrange the stars so they spelled out his words. I needed them big and bright, and somewhere I could see then when things felt dark. I love you. And I'm so, so proud.

In the silence, I sit alone on my throne and wait eagerly for all the satisfaction and triumph to hit me. I wait, and wait, and wait. But it doesn't come.

No. I'm not broken easily. I will never break.

A lot of things are yours, America

Why feel guilty for something that isn't your fault? Because I loved him. And now he is gone.

One of the greatest advantages of the totalitarian elites of the twenties and thirties was to turn any statement of fact into a question of motive.

Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda.

The Angeles air was quiet, and for a while I laid still, listening to the sound of Maxon breathing.

...Highly secretive, L'Occhio di Dio is an elite group of assassins with only one goal - the total destruction of all Prodigium. "Well, that's nice," I murmured to myself.

Someday, when I am nothing but dust and wind, what tale will they tell about me? Once upon a time, a girl had a father, a prince, a society of friends. Then they betrayed her, and she destroyed them all.

Pain enhances beauty. - Adelina Amouteru

We've become a nation of wolves, ruled by sheep. Owned by swine, overfed, and put to sleep. While the media elite declare what to think, I'll be wide awake, on the edge, and on the brink.

Don't cry. You are stronger than that.

...I want it to be as easy as breathing for you to say yes.

The key element of social control is the strategy of distraction that is to divert public attention from important issues and changes decided by political and economic elites, through the technique of flood or flooding continuous distractions and insignificant information.

Once upon a time, a prince fell madly in love with a demon from the Underworld. When she disappeared back into the sea, he ached so much for her that he walked into the ocean and never returned. —Kenettran Folk Tales, various authors

We know you're strong, but accepting help is its own kind of strength.

I'd spare your tears for the rest of your life if I could.

I sighed. "Actually, Mom, we argue pretty regularly." "What?" She gaped at me. "Well, stop it!" "Oh, and I kneed him in the groin once." There was a split second of silence before May barked a laugh. She covered her mouth and tried to stop it, but it kept coming out in awkward, squeaky sounds. Dad's lips were pressed together, but I could tell he was on the verge of losing it himself. Mom was paler then snow. "America, tell me you're joking. Tell me you didn't assault the prince." I don't know why, but the word assault pushed us all on the edge; and May, Dad, and I bent over laughing as Mom stared at us. "Sorry, Mom," I managed. "Oh, good lord." She suddenly seemed very excited in meeting Marlee's parents, and I didn't stop her from going.

I knew that, in my whole life, if I married Aspen or someone else, no one would ever make me feel this way. It wasn’t like I made his world better. It was like I was his world. It wasn’t some explosion; it wasn’t fireworks. It was a fire, burning slowly from the inside out.

Two Core Abilities for Thriving in the New Economy 1. The ability to quickly master hard things. 2. The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed.

I was afraid I was wrong, that you would change your mind any second. I’ve been looking for a suitable alternative, but the truth is …”—Maxon looked me in the eyes again, unwavering—“there’s only you. Maybe I’m not really looking, maybe they aren’t right for me. It doesn’t matter. I just know I want you. And that terrifies me. I’ve been waiting for you to take back the words, to beg to leave.

I hereby pledge to serve the Dagger Society, to strike fear into the hearts of those who rule Kenettra, to take by death what belong to us, and to make the power of our Elites known to every man, woman, and child. Should I break my vow, let the dagger take from me what I took from the dagger.

I know, I know. It's hard to explain. All I can say is that I've been given a second chance. Maxon matters to me, and I'm going to fight for him.

Tomorrow, I will take on all of these things. I will be unstoppable.

I'm sure you would have stopped it if you could have." "In a heartbeat.

Some hate us, think us outlaws to hang at the gallows. Some fear us, think demons to burn at the stake, Some worship us, think us children of the gods. But all know us.

You are a light,” she replies gently. “And when you shine, you shine bright.

None of us are saints. We can all do better.

What is so great about being good?

To those who, in spite of everything, still choose goodness

It was almost comforting, this mutual acceptance of our secrets.

What is the point of searching for love, when love is nothing but an illusion?

Fear creates the strongest illusions. Everyone has darkness inside them, however hidden.

You’ve changed me forever. And I’ll never forget you.” I ran my free hand down his chest, straightening his coat. “Don’t tug your ear with anyone else. That’s mine.” I gave him a tight smile. “A lot of things are yours, America.

So he enjoys a girl who stands up to him," Dad said once we all calmed down. "I like him more already.

It’s because I’m so good-looking, isn’t it?

Fear motivates, more than love or ambition or joy. Fear is more powerful than anything else in the world. I have spent so long yearning for things—for love, for acceptance—that I do not really need. I need nothing except the submission that comes with fear. I do not know why it took me so long to learn this.

She walks to the boy, tilts her head up at him, and smiles. He bends down to kiss her. Then he helps her onto the horse, and she rides away with him to a faraway place, until they can no longer be seen. These are only rumors, of course, and make little more than a story to tell around the fire. But it is told. And thus they live on.

I am Adelina Amouteru, the phantoms whispered to my father, speaking my most frightening thoughts in a chorus of voices, dripping with hatred. My hatred. I belong to no one. On this night, I swear to you that I will rise above everything you’ve ever taught me. I will become a force that this world has never known. I will come into such power that none will dare hurt me again.

We danced. Remember? I was so proud to have you there, in my arms,in front of other people. Even if you did look like you were having a seizure.

They're so cold, these scholars! May lightning strike their food so that their mouths learn how to eat fire!

The look in Marlee's eyes was triumphant, and the smile hiding behind her cup of tea said, 'Gotcha'!

It's just the way it is. The sky is blue, the sun is bright, and Aspen endlessly loves America. It's how the world was designed to be.

If me dying meant you living, how could that be anything but good?

If you’re a mistake, I’ll still make it every fucking time.

They think they can keep me out, but it does not matter how many locks they hang at the entrance. There is always another door. —The Thief Who Stole the Stars, by Tristan Chirsley

Everyone knows that to openly show any disrespect for Magiano means instant death at my hands.

Passion is bright and warm... But passion has a dark side too. It links with fear. Our hearts fill with terror at the thought of harm coming to our loved ones, don't they?

Those who fail to exhibit positive attitudes, no matter the external reality, are seen as maladjusted and in need of assistance. Their attitudes need correction. Once we adopt an upbeat vision of reality, positive things will happen. This belief encourages us to flee from reality when reality does not elicit positive feelings. These specialists in "happiness" have formulated something they call the "Law of Attraction." It argues that we attract those things in life, whether it is money, relationships or employment, which we focus on. Suddenly, abused and battered wives or children, the unemployed, the depressed and mentally ill, the illiterate, the lonely, those grieving for lost loved ones, those crushed by poverty, the terminally ill, those fighting with addictions, those suffering from trauma, those trapped in menial and poorly paid jobs, those whose homes are in foreclosure or who are filing for bankruptcy because they cannot pay their medical bills, are to blame for their negativity. The ideology justifies the cruelty of unfettered capitalism, shifting the blame from the power elite to those they oppress. And many of us have internalized this pernicious message, which in times of difficulty leads to personal despair, passivity and disillusionment.

If you quietly accept and go along no matter what your feelings are, ultimately you internalize what you're saying, because it's too hard to believe one thing and say another. I can see it very strikingly in my own background. Go to any elite university and you are usually speaking to very disciplined people, people who have been selected for obedience. And that makes sense. If you've resisted the temptation to tell the teacher, "You're an asshole," which maybe he or she is, and if you don't say, "That's idiotic," when you get a stupid assignment, you will gradually pass through the required filters. You will end up at a good college and eventually with a good job.

You were the one who changed us when you left me in the tree house; and you keep thinking that if you push hard enough, you can make everything go back to before that moment. It doesn't work that way. Give me a chance to choose you.

You are so full of light,” I say after a moment. “You align with joy, and I with fear and fury. If you could see into my thoughts, you would surely turn away. So why would you stay with me, even if return to Kenettra and resume our lives?” “You paint me as a saint,” he murmurs. “But I aligned with greed solely to prevent that.” Even now, he can make my lips twitch with a smile. “I’m serious, Magiano.” “As am I. None of us are saints. I have seen your darkness, yes, and know your struggle. I won’t deny it.” He touches my chin with one hand. At this gesture, the whispers seem to settle, pushed away where I can’t hear them. “But you are also passionate and ambitious and loyal. You are a thousand things, mi Adelinetta, not just one. Do not reduce yourself to that.

I remembered suddenly that Aspen had always been this way. He sacrificed sleep for me, he risked getting caught out after curfew for me, he scrounged together pennies for me. Aspen's generosity was harder to see because it wasn't as grand as Maxon's, but the heart behind what he gave was so much bigger.

Why do you look?” I mutter. I half expect Magiano to tease me, spitting back one of his sarcastic phrases. But he doesn’t smile. “We are drawn to stories," he says in a soft voice, “and every scar carries one.” He lifts a hand and places his palm gently against the ruined side of my face, covering the scar. I look down, embarrassed now. Instinctively, I reach up to brush some of my hair over my face—only to remember that I no longer have long locks. “Hiding it makes you more beautiful,” Magiano says. Then he takes his hand away, exposing my scar again. “But revealing it makes you you.” He nods at me. “So wear it proudly.

Why should we cherish “objectivity”, as if ideas were innocent, as if they don’t serve one interest or another? Surely, we want to be objective if that means telling the truth as we see it, not concealing information that may be embarrassing to our point of view. But we don’t want to be objective if it means pretending that ideas don’t play a part in the social struggles of our time, that we don’t take sides in those struggles. Indeed, it is impossible to be neutral. In a world already moving in certain directions, where wealth and power are already distributed in certain ways, neutrality means accepting the way things are now. It is a world of clashing interests – war against peace, nationalism against internationalism, equality against greed, and democracy against elitism – and it seems to me both impossible and undesirable to be neutral in those conflicts.

What is so unnerving about the candidacy of Sarah Palin is the degree to which she represents—and her supporters celebrate—the joyful marriage of confidence and ignorance . . . Ask yourself: how has "elitism" become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth—in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn't seem too intelligent or well educated.

Modern industrial civilization has developed within a certain system of convenient myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain, which is accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy, on the grounds that private vices yield public benefits in the classic formulation. Now, it's long been understood very well that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. It can only persist with whatever suffering and injustice it entails as long as it's possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited: that the world is an infinite resource, and that the world is an infinite garbage-can. At this stage of history, either one of two things is possible: either the general population will take control of its own destiny and will concern itself with community-interests, guided by values of solidarity and sympathy and concern for others; or, alternatively, there will be no destiny for anyone to control. As long as some specialized class is in a position of authority, it is going to set policy in the special interests that it serves. But the conditions of survival, let alone justice, require rational social planning in the interests of the community as a whole and, by now, that means the global community. The question is whether privileged elites should dominate mass-communication, and should use this power as they tell us they must, namely, to impose necessary illusions, manipulate and deceive the stupid majority, and remove them from the public arena. The question, in brief, is whether democracy and freedom are values to be preserved or threats to be avoided. In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured, they may well be essential to survival.

What are these?" Maxon asked, brushing across the tips of my fingers as we walked. "Calluses. They're from pressing down on violin strings four hours a day." "I've never noticed them before." "Do they bother you?" I was the lowest caste of the six girls left, and I doubted any of them had hands like mine. Maxon stopped moving and lifted my fingers to his lips, kissing the tiny, worn tips. "On the contrary. I find them rather beautiful." I felt myself blush. "I've seen the world – admittedly mostly through bulletproof glass or from the tower of some ancient castle – but I've seen it. And I have access to the answers of a thousand questions at my disposal. But this small hand here?" He looked deeply into my eyes. "This hand makes sounds incomparable to anything I've ever heard. Sometimes I think I only dreamed that I heard you play the violin, it was so beautiful. These calluses are proof that it was real.

I saw her, once. “She passed through our village, through fields littered with dead soldiers after her forces overwhelmed the nation of Dumor. Her other Elites followed and then rows of white-robed Inquisitors, wielding the white-and-silver banners of the White Wolf. Where they went, the sky dimmed and the ground cracked—the clouds gathered behind the army as if a creature alive, black and churning in fury. As if the goddess of Death herself had come. “She paused to look down at one of our dying soldiers. He trembled on the ground, but his eyes stayed on her. He spat something at her. She only stared back at him. I don’t know what he saw in her expression, but his muscles tightened, his legs pushing against the dirt as he tried in vain to get away from her. Then the man started to scream. It is a sound I shall never forget as long as I live. She nodded to her Rainmaker, and he descended from his horse to plunge a sword through the dying soldier. Her face did not change at all. She simply rode on. “I never saw her again. But even now, as an old man, I remember her as clearly as if she were standing before me. She was ice personified. There was once a time when darkness shrouded the world, and the darkness had a queen.” —A witness’s account of Queen Adelina’s siege on the nation of Dumor The Village of Pon-de-Terre 28 Marzien, 1402

Maxon, I hope you find someone you can't love without. I really do. And I hope you never have to know what it's like to have to try and live without them." Maxon's face was a shallow echo of my own pain. He looked absolutely brokenhearted for me. More than that, he looked angry. "I'm sorry, America. I don't..." His face shifted a little. "Is this a good time to pat your shoulder?" His uncertainty made me smile. "Yes. Now would be a great time." He seemed as skeptically as he'd been the other day, but instead of just patting my shoulder, he leaned in and tentatively wrapped his arms around me. "I only really ever hug my mother. Is this okay?" he asked. I laughed. "It's hard to get a hug wrong." After a minute, I spoke again. "I know what you mean, though. I don't really hug anyone besides my family." I felt so drained after the long day of dressing and the Report and dinner and talking. It was nice to have Maxon just hold me, sometimes even patting my hair. He wasn't as lost as he seemed. He patiently waited for my breathing to slow, and when it did, he pulled back to look at me. "America, I promise you I'll keep you here until the last possible moment. I understand that they want me to narrow the Elite down to three and then choose. But I swear to you, I'll make it to two and keep you here until then. I won't make you leave a moment before I have to. Or the moment you're ready. Whichever comes first." I nodded. "I know we just met, but I think you're wonderful. And it bothers me to see you hurt. If he were here, I'd...I'd..." Maxon shook with frustration, then sighed. "I'm so sorry, America." He pulled me back in, and I rested my head on his broad shoulder. I knew Maxon would keep his promises. So I settled into perhaps the last place I ever thought I'd find genuine comfort.