Allegiant Quotes

Chapter 2
1. Suddenly desperate for comfort, I reach for Triss 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. Page 8
2. I feel the urge, familiar now, to wrench myself from my body and speak directly into
her mind. It is the same urge, I realize, that makes me want to kiss her every time I see
her, because even a sliver of distance between us is infuriating. Page 9
Chapter 3
3. From one tyrant to another. That is the world we know now. Page 13
Chapter 5
4. Yes, well, I realized that weve never been on an actual date.
Chaos and destruction do tend to take away a persons dating possibilities.
Page 25
Chapter 9
5. I have never had parents who set good examples, parents whose expectations
were worth living up to, but she did. I can see them within her, the courage and the
beauty they pressed into her like a handprint. Page 67
Chapter 10
6. Whys he bleeding?
Because hes an idiot.
Zeke offers me a black jacket with a factionless symbol stitched into the collar. I
didnt know that idiocy caused people to just start spontaneously bleeding from the
nose. Page 79
Chapter 11
7. Not sure why an Erudite like you cant get it through his head, Tobias is
saying, but you arent going to be able to outrun me.
Hes right, says Uriah. Fours fast. Not as fast as me, but definitely faster than
a Nose like you.
Christina laughs. A what?
Nose. Uriah touches the side of his nose. Its a play on words. Knows with a
K, knowledge, Eruditeget it? Its like Stiff.
The Dauntless have the weirdest slang. Pansycake, Noseis there a term for
the Candor?
Of course. Uriah grins. Jerks. Page 90
8. Tobias can take care of himself, but in an attack, surviving is an accident. It doesnt
take skill to stand in a place where no bullets find you, or to fire into the dark and hit a
man you didnt see. It is all luck, or providence, depending on what you believe. And I
dont knowhave never knownexactly what I believe. Page 95
Chapter 12
9. There is something deeply wrong with taking a persons memorieseven though I
know it was necessary to keep our city safe for as long as it needed to be, I feel it in the
pit of my stomach. Take a persons memories, and you change who they are. Page
100
Chapter 14
10. You know, it would be perfectly logical for you to be panicking right now, she
says. No need to continually insist upon your unshakable masculinity.
Mywhat?
She smiles, and I realize that she was joking.Page 115
Chapter 15
11. Genes arent everything, Amar says. People, even genetically damaged
people, make choices. Thats what matters. Page 127
12. Why is it, I say, that we always find ourselves surrounded by people?
I dont know, he says. Maybe because were stupid.
I laugh, and its laughter, not light, that casts out the darkness building within
me, that reminds me I am still alive, even in this strange place where everything Ive
ever known is coming apart. I know some thingsI know that Im not alone, that I have
friends, that Im in love. I know where I came from. I know that I dont want to die, and
for me, thats somethingmore than I could have said a few weeks ago. Page 137
Chapter 17
13. Oh, good, I say, a sour taste in my mouth. Heroism is what I was focused on.
Not, you know, trying not to die. Page 148
Chapter 22
14. I look down at the worn cover and run my fingers along the edges of the pages.
He makes the acquisition of knowledge feel like a secret, beautiful thing, and an ancient
thing. I feel like, if I read this book, I can reach backward through all the generations of
humanity to the very first one, wherever it wasthat I can participate in something
many times larger and older than myself. Page 219
Chapter 23
15. You were afraid of shooting people?
No, I say. I was afraid of my considerable capacity to kill.
She is silent, and so am I. Thats the first time Ive ever said those words out
loud, and now I hear how strange they are. How many young men fear that there is a
monster inside them? People are supposed to fear others, not themselves. People are
supposed to aspire to become their fathers, not shudder at the thought. Page 239
16. Youre from Chicago? Rafi says to me.
I nod, still looking at the dark street.
And now that you are out? How does the world seem to you? he says.
Mostly the same, I say. People are just divided by different things, fighting
different wars. Page 249
Chapter 24
17. Where have you been lately? Christina says. She wiggles her eyebrows. With
Four? Doing a littleaddition? Multiplication?
I cover my face with my hands. That was the worst joke Ive ever heard. Page
255
18. Okay, I say. Ill go. But dont for a second think that I actually believe shes
not interested in you for more than your genetic code.
Well, he says. Dont for a second think Im interested in anyone but you.
Page 260
Chapter 26
19. You know what Mom told me once? he says, and the way he saysMom, like
he didnt betray her, sets my teeth on edge. She said that everyone has some evil
inside them, and the first step to loving anyone is to recognize the same evil in
ourselves, so were able to forgive them. Page 277
Chapter 33
20. All that land is filled with people, every one of them different, and the things
they do to each other matter. Page 330
21. So, have you been ostracized from your little crowd of devotees?
No, I say automatically. Then I add, Maybe. But they arent my devotees.
Please. Theyre like the Cult of Four.
I cant help but laugh. Jealous? Wish you had a Cult of Psychopaths to call your
very own?
One of his eyebrows twitches up. If I was a psychopath, I would have killed you
in your sleep by now.
And added my eyeballs to your eyeball collection, no doubt. Page 330
22. I watch her blonde head until it disappears around the bend, and I feel bare, like
theres nothing left to protect me against pain. Her absence stings worst of all. Page
341
Chapter 36
23. I dont know how it would feel, ti hate your own history and to crave love from the
people who gave that history to you at the same time. How have I never seen the
schism inside his hear? How have I never realized before that for all the strong, kind
parts of him, there are also hurting, broken parts?
Caleb told me that our mother said there was evil in everyone, and the first step
to loving someone else is to recognize that evil in ourselves, so we can forgive them. So
how can I hold Tobiass desperation against him, like Im better than him, like Ive never
let my own broken-ness blind me? Page 370
24. I think youre still the only person sharp enough to sharpen someone like me.
Page 372
25. 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 thats true of beginnings,
but its not true of this, now.
I fell in love with him. But I dont just stay with him by default as if theres 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. Page 372
Chapter 38
26. Maybe its not her genes, I say, shrugging. I switch feet. Maybe its some kind
of superhuman stubbornness. Page 380
Chapter 41
27. To me, when someone wrongs you, you both share the burden of that
wrongdoingthe pain of it weighs on both of you. Forgiveness, then, means choosing
to bear the full weight all by yourself. Page 410
28. I dont want to die anymore. I am up to the challenge of bearing the guilt and the
grief, up to facing the difficulties that life has put in my path. Some days are harder than
others, but I am ready to live each one of them. I cant sacrifice myself, this time.
Page 411
29. I just want to thank you, he says, his voice low. A group of scientists told you
that my genes were damaged, that there was something wrong with methey showed
you test results that proved it. And even I started to believe it.
He touches my face, his thumb skimming my cheek-bone, and his eyes are on
mine, intense and insistent.
You never believed it, he says. Not for a second. You always insisted that I
wasI dont know, whole.
I cover his hand with my own. Well, you are.
No one has ever told me that before, he says softly.
Its what you deserve to hear, I say firmly, my eyes going cloudy with tears.
That youre whole, that youre worth loving, that youre the best person Ive ever
known. Page 413
30. Just as I have insisted on his worth, he has always insisted on my strength,
insisted that my capacity is greater than I believe. And I know, without being told, thats
what love does, when its rightit makes you more than you were, more than you
thought you could be.
This is right. Page 414
Chapter 42
31. Morning, I say.
Shh, she says. If you dont acknowledge it, maybe it will go away. Page
418
32. The gun jerks back and up, firing the bullet near the ceiling. I cover my mouth with
my hand to disguise my smile.
Theres no need to giggle, Caleb says irritably. Page 421
Chapter 47
33. He is a part of me, always will be, and I am a part of him, too. I dont belong to
Abnegation, or Dauntless, or even the Divergent. I dont belong to the Bureau or the
experiment or the fringe. I belong to the people I love, and they belong to methey, and
the love and loyalty I give them, form my identity far more than any word or group ever
could.
I love my brother. I love him, and he is quaking with terror at the thought of
death. I love him and all I can think, all I can hear in my mind, are the words I said to
him a few days ago: I would never deliver you to your own execution.
Caleb, I say. Give me the backpack.Page 455
34. If I dont survive, I say, tell Tobias I didnt want to leave him. Page 456
Chapter 50
35. My mother wasnt a fool, I say. She just understood something you didnt.
That its not sacrifice if its someone elses life youre giving away, its just evil.
I back up another step and say, She taught me all about real sacrifice. That it
should be done from love, not misplaced disgust for another persons genetics. That it
should be done from necessity, not without exhausting all other options. That is should
be done for people who need your strength because they dont have enough of their
own.Page 473
36. What about the others? I choke on a sob as the image of Tobias comes into
my mind, of how dark and how still his eyes were, how strong and warm his hand was,
when we first stood face-to-face. Tobias, Caleb, my friends?
Theyll care for each other, she says. Thats what people do.
I smile and close my eyes. Page 475
37. Can I be forgiven for all Ive done to get here?
I want to be.
I can.
I believe it. Page 476
Chapter 53
38. I saw her in the hallways at school, and at my mothers false funeral, and walking
the sidewalks in the Abnegation sector. I saw her, but I didnt see her; no one saw her
the way she truly was until she jumped.
I suppose a fire that burns that bright is not meant to last. Page 492
Chapter 55
39. Those lost in the memory serum haze are gathered into groups and given the
truth: that human nature is complex, that all our genes are different, but neither
damaged nor pure. Page 495
Chapter 56
40. Maybe just as skin on a hand grows tougher after pain in repetition, a person does
too. But I dont want to become a calloused man. Page 508
41. 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 doesnt.
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. Page 509
Epilogue
42. Change, like healing, takes time. Page 512
43. Ive had enough violence to last me a lifetime, and I bear it still, not in scars on my
skin but in the memories that rise up in my mind when I least want them to, my fathers
fist colliding with my jaw, my gun raised to execute Eric, the Abnegation bodies
sprawled across the streets of my old home. Page 519
44. Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We
cant escape that damage.
But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended.
We mend each other. Page 526