I look out the window again, taking slow, deep breaths into a body too tense to move. And as I stare out at the land, I think that this, if nothing else, is compelling evidence for my parents’ God, that our world is so massive that it is completely out of our control, that we cannot possibly be as large as we feel. -Tris Prior

My body rises with the water. Instead of kicking my feet to stay abreast of it, I push all the air from my lungs and sink to the bottom. The water muffles my ears. I feel its movement over my face. I think about snorting the water into my lungs so it kills me faster, but I can't bring myself to do it. I blow bubbles from my mouth. Relax. I close my eyes. My lungs burn.

I think about pressing myself against him, but I can't, because all our secrets would keep a space between us.

Now she looks pale and small, but her eyes make me think of wide- open skies that I have never actually seen, only dreamed of.

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

We can't be confined to one way of thinking, and that terrifies our leaders. It means we can't be controlled. And it means that no matter what they do, we will always cause trouble for them.

What do you think they're going to do to us when they find us guilty?" she says after a few minutes of silence have passed. "Honestly?" "Does now seem like the time for honesty?" I look at her from the corner of my eye. "I think they're going to force us to eat lots of cake and then take an unreasonably long nap.

He should be the one to die, part of me thinks. I don't want to lose him, another part argues. I don't know which part to believe.

Little girl, he called me. A little girl who is stressed out to the point of paranoia. That is not me, but now, it's who the Candor think I am.

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 too late. Not saying it before it was almost too late for me.

To find that place between what I want and what I think is wise.

What's your name? Um... Think about it. You don't get to pick again. Tris.

Beatrice. We should think of our family. But. But we must also think of ourselves.

Be careful, though." "Aren't I always?" "No, I think the word for how you usually are is 'reckless.

Caleb runs up to me and folds me carefully in his arms. I breathe a sigh of relief. I thought I had gotten to the point where I didn’t need my brother anymore, but I don’t think such a point actually exists.

A breeze blows through the alley, pushing me to one side, and I think of scaling the Ferris wheel with Tobias. He kept me steady then. There is no one left to keep me steady now.

THE SERUM WEARS off five hours later, when the sun is just beginning to set. Tobias shut me in my room for the rest of the day, checking on me every hour. This time when he comes in, I am sitting on the bed, glaring at the wall. “Thank God,” he says, pressing his forehead to the door. “I was beginning to think it would never wear off and I would have to leave you here to … smell flowers, or whatever you wanted to do while you were on that stuff.

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 shield my eyes from the sun to see her cold look—the expression I saw in my mind even before I looked at her. She looks older to me than she ever has, stern and tough and worn by time. I feel that way, too. “These people have no regard for human life,” she says. “They’re about to wipe the memories of all our friends and neighbors. They’re responsible for the deaths of a large majority of our old faction.” She sidesteps me and marches toward the door. “I think they’re lucky I’m not going to kill them.

They try to make you think they care about what you do but they don't. They don't want you to act a certain way. So you're easy to understand. So you won't pose a threat to them.

My problem might be that even if I did go home, I wouldn’t belong there, among people who give without thinking and care without trying.

I catch myself thinking 'Thank God For This' out of habit, and then I understand what he's so concerned about. What if my parents' God, their whole belief system, is just something concocted by a bunch of scientists to keep us under control? And not just their beliefs about God and whatever else is out there, about right and wrong, about selfishness?

I used to think about giving my life up for things, but I didn't understand what 'giving your life' really was until it was right there, about to be taken from me

No. Because it's so stupid no Dauntless with any sense would speak it, let alone think it. Pansycake. What are you, twelve?" "And a half," he says.

This is bizarre," I say. "I think it's beautiful," he says. I give him a look. "What?" He laughs a little. "They each have an equal role in government; they each feel equally responsible. And it makes them care; it makes them kind. I think that's beautiful.

I used to think that when people fell in love, they just landed where they landed, and they had no choice in the matter afterward. And maybe that's true of beginnings, but it's not true of this, now.

Is this Prior?" "In the flesh." "Why's he bleeding?" "Because he's an idiot." Zeke offers me a black jacket with a factionless symbol stitched into the collar. "I didn't know that idiocy caused people to just start spontaneously bleeding from the nose." I wrap the jacket around Caleb's shoulders and fasten one of the buttons over his chest. He avoids my eyes. "I think it's a new phenomenon.", I say.

Someone shouts, "Enough!" and I think too much and nothing at all.

I think they're going to force us to eat lots of cake and then take an unreasonably long nap.

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.

I try to leave some space in my mind for things to surprise me or change my mind, I think that's important.

Every faction conditions its members to think and act a certain way. And most people do it. For most people, it's not hard to learn, to find a pattern of thought that works and stay that way. But our minds move in a dozen different directions. We can't be confined to one way of thinking, and that terrifies our leaders. It means we can't be controlled. And it means that no matter what they do, we will always cause trouble for them.

Sometimes you just need to talk to someone who is detached from you. They just listen to what you tell them and you get to form the way that they see you, whereas everyone else in your life already thinks they know what you're dealing with or what you're going through. That's my recommendation for actual anxiety.

It will be difficult to break the habits of thinking Abnegation instilled in me, like tugging a single thread from a complex work of embroidery. But I will find new habits, new thoughts, new rules. I will become something else.

I see love developing from friendship. Common ground is a strong basis for friendship. My husband is my best friend and we have a lot in common even though we're admittedly different people. I think it evolves from how I see relationships working. You know, the opposites attract thing happens all the time, but so does the best friends thing. It's just a great kind of relationship in fiction.

I think you're still the only person sharp enough to sharpen someone like me.

I don't want to try to live up to someone who's created something so incredible. I'm just trying to focus on what I'm doing and what I do best. It's sometimes hard to focus in and only think about my books rather than how they measure up to someone else's.

I want people to come away from my book with questions. Questions about virtue and goodness. Not answers.

Seeing people who are actually reading your book and listening to the wide variety of reactions they have to it, is really special.

People make me key chains... someone attached a Dauntless symbol to a silver pen. That one is what I use to sign books. I use that a lot. I like to keep them around because they remind me that people are waiting for these books and that they really love them. It gives me motivation in those times when I'm not feeling very motivated.

Tris: Wait. So you have no idea what my aptitude is? Tori: Yes and No. My conclusion is that you display equal aptitude for Abnegation, Dauntless and Erudite. People who get this kind of result are..are called...Divergent.

You're not a coward just because you don't want to hurt people.

The cruelty of fate is that I must travel with the people I hate when the people I love are dead behind me.

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

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.

But Christina and I are not people who cry together; we're people who fight together. SO I hold my tears in.

I came here so that no one else would die. I came here to protect as many people as I could. And I care more about Tobias's safety than anyone else's. So why am I here, if he's here? What's the point?

You were afraid of shooting people?" "No," I say. "I was afraid of my considerable capacity to kill." How many young men fear that there is a monster inside of them?

But I think that no matter how smart, people usually see what they're already looking for, that's all.

It's strange to see people you don't know well in the morning, with sleepy eyes and pillow creases in their cheeks