The collection / 88 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey between footsteps makes up our lives

Ally Condie / quote

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02Undated

They both have in common their conviction that they are still learning, still growing, when in fact they have long ago lost that ability.

Ally Condie / quote

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03Undated

I can trust in my parents' love. And it strikes me that is a big thing to trust, a big thing to have had, no matter what else happens.

Ally Condie / quote

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04Undated

Sometimes you can't speak, not because others won't let you, but because you are afraid of what you'll say.

Ally Condie / quote

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05Undated

Because I feel no anger toward my mother. Only loss, and loss is a feeling you can’t fight your way out of as easily.

Ally Condie / quote

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06Undated

You always have something left to lose. Until, of course, you die.

Ally Condie / quote

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07Undated

Nothing is really lost as long as you remember it

Ally Condie / quote

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08Undated

I draw in a ragged breath, the kind you take when the pain is too deep to cry, when you can't cry because all you are is pain, and if you let some of it out, you might cease to exist. I want to do something to make this better, even though I know that nothing can change the fact of my father gone and under ground.

Ally Condie / quote

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09Undated

It is strange how we hold on to the pieces of the past while we wait for our futures.

Ally Condie / quote

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10Undated

Inside me are the real things that give me strength—my thoughts, the small stones of my own choosing. They tumble in my mind, some polished from frequent turning, some new and rough, some that cut.

Ally Condie / quote

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11Undated

The pain wants to eat me away. I wish I could have one without the other, but that's the problem with being alive. You don't usually get to choose the measure of suffering or the degree of joy you have.

Ally Condie / quote

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12Undated

We need you.""I'm sorry, but I can't let that keep me here anymore.

Ally Condie / quote

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13Undated

I'll go over again and again until I've finally crossed to where he is

Ally Condie / quote

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14Undated

All of the things that were shown in early studies to be good for longevity—happy marriages, healthy bodies—are ours to have. We live long,good lives. We die on our eightieth birthdays, surrounded by our families, before dementia sets in. Cancer, heart disease, and most debilitatingillnesses are almost entirely eradicated. This is as close to perfect as any society has ever managed to get.

Ally Condie / quote

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15Undated

If you love someone, if someone loved you, if they taught you to write and made it so you could speak, how can you do nothing at all? You might as well take their words out of the dirt and try to snatch them from the wind.Because once you love, it is gone. You love and you cannot call it back.

Ally Condie / quote

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16Undated

Ky gives me three gifts for my birthday. A poem, a kiss and the hopeless, beautiful belief that things might work. When I open my eyes... I say, "I didn't give you anything for your birthday, i don't even know when it is." And he says, "Don't worry about that" and I say, "What can I do?" and he answers, "Let me believe in this, all of this, and you believe it too."And I do.

Ally Condie / quote

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17Undated

What did you think about?" I wish I could tell him that I thought about him, but I lied to him once and I won't do it again. And besides, I wasn't thinking about Xander either. "I thought about angels," I say."Angels?""You know. The ones in the old stories. How they can fly to heaven." "Do you think anyone believes in them anymore?" He asks."I don't know. No. Do you?""I believe in you," he says, his voice hushed and almost reverent. "That's more faith than I ever thought I'd have.

Ally Condie / quote

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18Undated

It's been so long since I've let myself feel anger that I don't just feel it. It covers my mouth and I swallow it down, the taste sharp and metal as though I'm gnawing through foilware.

Ally Condie / quote

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19Undated

But if you were matched," I say softly, "What do you think she'd be like?""You," he says, almost before I've finished. "You,

Ally Condie / quote

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20Undated

This is a difficult balance, telling the truth: how much to share, how much to keep, which truths will wound but not ruin, which will cut too deep to heal.

Ally Condie / quote

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21Undated

Until now, I've never been able to see while I fly, and I feel a dizzying lightness as I look out at the land bel

Ally Condie / quote

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22Undated

No,' she says, as if the suggestion is ridiculous. 'I wouldn't go back to where I'm from. I'd go someplace I've never been.

Ally Condie / quote

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23Undated

Good-bye,” I say to Grandfather, and to my father, and I hold the tube in the river and pause a moment. We hold the choices of our fathers and mothers in our hands and when we cling on or let them slip between our fingers, those choices become our own.

Ally Condie / quote

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24Undated

Did you know Grandfather would give the poems to me?” I ask.“We thought he might,” my mother says.“Why didn’t you stop him?”“We didn’t want to take away your choices,” my mother says.“But Grandfather never did tell me about the Rising,” I say.“I think he wanted you to find your own way,” my mother says. She smiles. “In that way, he was a true rebel. I think that’s why he chose that argument with your father as his favorite memory. Though he was upset when the fight happened, later he came to see that your father was strong in choosing his own path, and he admired him for it.

Ally Condie / quote

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