Roth Quotes

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

Becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it.

I might be in love with you." He smiles a little. "I'm waiting until I'm sure to tell you, though.

I have a theory that selflessness and bravery aren't all that different.

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

Peter would probably throw a party if I stopped breathing.' 'Well,' he says, 'I would only go if there was cake.

Sometimes crying or laughing are the only options left, and laughing feels better right now.

A brave man acknowledges the strength of others.

I am selfish. I am brave.

We both have war inside us. Sometimes it keeps us alive. Sometimes it threatens to destroy us.

Cruelty does not make a person dishonest, the same way bravery does not make a person kind.

Then I realize what it is. It's him. Something about him makes me feel like I am about to fall. Or turn to liquid. Or burst into flames.

I suppose a fire that burns that bright is not meant to last.

Politeness is deception in pretty packaging.

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

It must require bravery to be honest all the time.

Sometimes, the best way to help someone is just to be near them.

I feel like someone breathed new air into my lungs. I am not Abnegation. I am not Dauntless. I am Divergent.

Can you be a girl for a few seconds?" "I'm always a girl" I frown. "You know what I mean. Like a silly, annoying girl" I twirl my hair around my finger. "Kay.

Sleep,” he says. “I'll fight the bad dreams off if they come to get you.” “With what?” “My bare hands, obviously.

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.

It is possible to be in love with you just because of who you are.

Who cares about pretty? I'm going for noticeable.

I fell in love with him. But I don't just stay with him by default as if there's no one else available to me. I stay with him because I choose to, every day that I wake up, every day that we fight or lie to each other or disappoint each other. I choose him over and over again, and he chooses me.

It reminds me why I chose Dauntless in the first place: not because they are perfect, but because they are alive. Because they are free.

...there is power in self-sacrifice.

No matter how long you train someone to be brave, you never know if they are or not until something real happens.

I wonder if fears ever really go away, or if they just lose their power over us.

Like a wild animal, the truth is too powerful to remain caged.

Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.

I have something I need to tell you," he says. I run my fingers along the tendons in his hands and look back at him. "I might be in love with you." He smiles a little. "I'm waiting until I'm sure to tell you, though." "That's sensible of you," I say, smiling too. "We should find some paper so you can make a list or a chart or something." I feel his laughter against my side, his nose sliding along my jaw, his lips pressing my ear. "Maybe I'm already sure," he says, "and I just don't want to frighten you." I laugh a little. "Then you should know better." "Fine," he says. "Then I love you.

I feel his heartbeat against my cheek,as fast as my own. "Are you afraid of me, too, Tobias?" "Terrified," he replies with a smile.

You know, most boys would enjoy being trapped in close quarters with a girl." I roll my eyes. "Not claustrophobic people, Tris.

Human beings as a whole cannot be good for long before the bad creeps back in and poisons us again.

Nothing ever happens like you imagine it will

Knowledge is power. Power to do evil...or power to do good. Power itself is not evil. So knowledge itself is not evil.

Moths," repeats Will. "You're afraid of moths?" "Not just a cloud of moths," she says, "like...a swarm of them. Everywhere. All those wings and legs and..." She shudders and shakes her head. "Terrifying," Will says with mock seriousness. "That's my girl. Tough as cotton balls." "Oh, Shut up.

One Choice One Choice, decided your friends. One Choice, defines your beliefs. One Choice, determines your loyalties - Forever. ONCE CHOICE CAN TRANSFORM YOU

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

People tend to overestimate my character," I say quietly. "They think that because I'm small, or a girl, or a Stiff, I can't possibly be cruel. But they're wrong.

You think giving you a hug would give away too much?" he says. "You know," I say. "I really don't care." I stand on my tiptoes and press my lips to his. It is the best moment of my life.

I’m not important. Everyone will do just fine without me,” I say. “Who cares about everyone? What about me?

Four flips the gun in this hand, presses the barrel to Peter's forehead, and clicks a bullet into place. Peter freezes with his lips parted, the yawn dead in his mouth. "Wake. Up," Four snaps. "You are holding a loaded gun, you idiot. Act like it.

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

Human reason can excuse any evil; that is why it's so important that we don't rely on it.

I am his, and he is mine, and it has been that way all along.

I'll say it one last time: Be brave.

Lies require commitment.

For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.

I belong to the people I love, and they belong to me--they, and the love and loyaty I give them, form my identity far more than any word or group ever could.

I pout my lower lip for a second, but then I grin as the pieces come together. "That's why you like me!" I exclaim. "Because you're not very nice either! It makes so much more sense now.

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.

What did you do, memorize a map of the city for fun?” says Christina. “Yes,” says Will, looking puzzled. “Didn’t you?

Why do people want to pretend that death is sleep? It isn't. It isn't.

Change, like healing, takes time.

The truth has a way of changing people's plans.

Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.

She taught me all about real sacrifice. That it should be done from love... That it should be done from necessity, not without exhausting all other options. That it should be done for people who need your strength because they don't have enough of their own.

Two things you should know about me; The first is that I am deeply suspicious of people in general. It is my nature to expect the worst of them. And the second is that I am unexpectedly good with computers.

You know your problem, Quentin? You keep expecting people not to be themselves. I mean, I could hate you for being massively unpunctual and for never being interested in anything other than Margo Roth Spiegelman, and for, like, never asking me about how it's going with my girlfriend - but I don't give a shit, man, because you're you. My parents have a shit ton of black Santas, but that's okay. They're them. I'm too obsessed with a reference website to answer my phone sometimes when my friends call, or my girlfriend. That's okay, too. That's me. You like me anyway. And I like you. You're funny, and you're smart, and you may show up late, but you always show up eventually.

We're all right, you know,' he says quietly. 'You and me. Okay?' My chest aches, and I nod. 'Nothing else is all right.' His whisper tickles my cheek. 'But we are.

You die, I die too.” Tobias looks over his shoulder at me. “I asked you not to do this. You made your decision. These are the repercussions.

The person you became with her is worth being.

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

Insurgent, he says. Noun. A person who acts in opposition to the established authority, who is not necessarily regarded as a belligerent.

For a few minutes we kiss, deep in the chasm, with the roar of water all around us. And we rise, hand in hand, I realize that if we had both chosen differently, we might have ended up doing the same thing, in a safer place, in gray clothes instead of black ones.

You don’t believe things because they make your life better, you believe them because they’re true.

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightening, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us. I could have seen it rain frogs. I could have stepped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten by a whale. I could have married the Queen of England or survived months at sea. But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.

I could never hurt him enough to make his betrayal stop hurting. And it hurts, in every part of my body.

You're not very nice," I say, grinning. "You're one to talk." "Hey, I could be nice if I tried." "Hmm." He taps his chin. "Say something nice, then." "You're very good-looking." He smiles, his teeth a flash in this dark. "I like this 'nice' thing.

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. But if I saw her, I wouldn't recognize her.

Shh,” I say. “Arms around me.” Obediently, he slips both arms around my waist. I smile at the wall. I am not enjoying this. I am not, not even a little bit, no.

Sometimes,” he says, sliding his arm across my shoulders, “people just want to be happy, even if it’s not real.

If I don't survive," I say, "tell Tobias I didn't want to leave him.

He told me once to be brave, and though I have stood still while knives spun toward my face and jumped off a roof, I never thought I would need bravery in the small moments of my life. I do.

Maybe there's more we all could have done, but we just have to let the guilt remind us to do better next time.

If Eric thinks I did something right, I must have done it wrong.

The first step to loving someone else is to recognize the evil in ourselves, so we can forgive them.

A chasm reminds us that there is a fine line between bravery and idiocy.

You nearly died today,' he says. 'I almost shot you. Why didn't you shoot me, Tris?' 'I couldn't do that,' I say. 'It would have been like shooting myself.' He looks pained and leans closer to me, so his lips brush mine when he speaks.

Do remember, though, that sometimes the people you oppress become mightier than you would like.

And all at once I knew how Margo Roth Spiegelman felt when she wasn't being Margo Roth Spiegelman: she felt empty. She felt the unscaleable wall surrounding her. I thought of her asleep on the carpet with only that jagged sliver of sky above her. Maybe Margo felt comfortable there because Margo the person lived like that all the time: in an abandoned room with blocked-out windows, the only light pouring in through holes in the roof. Yes. The fundamental mistake I had always made—and that she had, in fairness, always led me to make—was this: Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl.

You look older.” “Yes, well. The passage of time tends to do that to a person.

Learning how to think in the midst of fear is a lesson that everyone needs to learn.

Killing you is not the worst thing they can do to you," I say. "Controlling you is.

But when I do feel all the strength go out of me, and I fall to my knees beside the table and I think I cry, then, or at least I want to, and everything inside me screams for just one more kiss, one more word, one more glance, one more.

Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up. I've seen it. It's fascinating." He releases me but doesn't pull away, his hand grazing my jaw, my neck. "Sometimes I just...want to see it again. Want to see you awake.

You think my first instinct is to protect you. Because you're small, or a girl, or a Stiff. But you're wrong." He leans his face close to mine and wraps his fingers around my chin. His hand smells like metal. When was the last time he held a gun, or a knife? My skin tingles at the point of contact, like he's transmitting electricity through his skin. "My first instinct is to push you until you break, just to see how hard I have to press." he says, his fingers squeezing at the word break. My body tenses at the edge in his voice, so I am coiled as tight as a spring, and I forget to breathe. His dark eyes lifting to mine, he adds, "But I resist it." "Why..." I swallow hard. "Why is that your first instinct?" "Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up. I've seen it. It's fascinating." He releases me but doesn't pull away, his hand grazing my jaw, my neck. "Sometimes I just want to see it again. Want to see you awake.

When her body first hit the net, all I registered was a gray blur. I pulled her across it and her hand was small, but warm, and then she stood before me, short and thin and plain and in all ways unremarkable- except that she had jumped first. The stiff had jumped first. Even I didn't jump first. Her eyes were so stern, so insistent. Beautiful.

I fell for her in summer, my lovely summer girl, From summer she is made, my lovely summer girl, I’d love to spend a winter with my lovely summer girl, But I’m never warm enough for my lovely summer girl, It’s summer when she smiles, I’m laughing like a child, It’s the summer of our lives; we’ll contain it for a while She holds the heat, the breeze of summer in the circle of her hand I’d be happy with this summer if it’s all we ever had.

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.

Okay. Then...I can talk. Ask me something." "Okay." He laughs shakily in my ear. "Why is your heart racing Tris?" I cringe and say, "Well, I...I barely know you. I barely know you and I'm crammed up against you in a box, Four, what do you think?"... "Maybe you were cut out for Candor," he says, "because you're a terrible liar.

The only obsession everyone wants: 'love.' People think that in falling in love they make themselves whole? The Platonic union of souls? I think otherwise. I think you're whole before you begin. And the love fractures you. You're whole, and then you're cracked open.

We've all started to put down the virtues of the other factions in the process of bolstering our own. I don't want to do that. I want to be brave, and selfless, and smart, and kind, and honest." He clears his throat. "I continually struggle with kindness.

What is it with you today?” says Christina on the way to breakfast. Her eyes are still swollen from sleep and her tangled hair forms a fuzzy halo around her face. “Oh, you know,” I say. “Sun shining. Birds chirping.” She raises an eyebrow at me, as if reminding me that we are in an underground tunnel.

Okay, okay.” I set my hand on top of his and guide it to my chest, so it’s right over my heart. “Feel my heartbeat. Can you feel it?” “Yes.” “Feel how steady it is?” “It’s fast.” “Yes, well, that has nothing to do with the box.” I wince as soon as I’m done speaking. I just admitted to something. Hopefully he doesn’t realize that.

I read somewhere, one, 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 of me is a beast that snarls, and growls, and strains toward freedom, toward Tobias, and, above all, towards life. And as hard as I try, I cannot kill it.

Who is he when he isn't Dauntless, isn't an instructor, isn't Four, isn't anything in particular? Whoever he is, I like him. It's easier to admit that to myself now, in the dark, after all that just happened. He is not sweet or gentle or particularly kind. But he is smart and brave, and even though he saved me, he treated me like I was strong. That is all I need to know.

Yeah, well," I say, "I left Abnegation because I wasn't selfless enough, no matter how hard I tried to be." "That's not entirely true." He smiles at me. "That girl who let someone throw knives at her to spare a friend, who hit my dad with a belt to protect me-that selfless girl, that's not you?"... "You've been paying close attention, haven't you?" "I like to observe people/" "Maybe you were cut out for Candor, Four, because you're a terrible liar.

I’ll be your family now,” he says. “I love you,” I say. I said that once, before I went to Erudite headquarters, but he was asleep then. I don’t know why I didn’t say it when he could hear it. Maybe I was afraid to trust him with something so personal as my devotion. Or afraid that I did not know what it was to love someone. But now I think the scary thing was not saying it before it was almost too late. Not saying it before it was almost too late for me. I am his, and he is mine, and it has been that way all along. He stares at me. I wait with my hands clutching his arms for stability as he considers his response. He frowns at me. “Say it again.” “Tobias,” I say, “I love you.” His skin is slippery with water and he smells like sweat and my shirt sticks to his arms when he slides them around me. He presses his face to my neck and kisses me right above the collarbone, kisses my cheek, kisses my lips. “I love you, too,” he says.