The collection / 88 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01c. 1978 AD

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.

Ally Condie / quote

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02c. 1978 AD

I know how it feels when people look right through you, or worse, see you as something or someone other than what you are.

Ally Condie / quote

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03c. 1978 AD

Ky still looks at me and I wonder for a moment if he is going to ask me what I am thinking about. But of course, he doesn't. He doesn't learn things by asking questions... He learns by watching.

Ally Condie / quote

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04c. 1978 AD

I'm falling in love. I am in love. and it's not with Xander, though I do love him. I'm sure of that, as sure as I am of the fact what I feel for Ky is something different.

Ally Condie / quote

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05c. 1978 AD

Everyone dies. The don't all have the chance to see what they wanted most. At least I've seen the Above. At least I've known True.

Ally Condie / quote

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06c. 1978 AD

What are the gifts given to we who live Below?""Long life, health, strength, and happiness.""What is the curse of those who live Above?""Short life, illness, weakness, and misery.""Is this fair?""It is fair. It is as the gods decreed at the time of the Divide. Some have to stay Above so that humanity might survive Below.""Then give thanks.

Ally Condie / quote

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07c. 1978 AD

So much of life is in the smallness of moments...but they are harder to mark. So we need the grander celebrations and occasions. People like to feel significant

Ally Condie / quote

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08c. 1978 AD

I love you."lightning. Once it has forked, hot-white, from sky to earth, there is no going back.It's time. I feel it, I know it. My eyes on him, his on me, and both of us breathing, watching, tired of of waiting. Ky close his eyes, but mine are still open. what will it feel like, his lips on mine? Like a secret told, a promise kept? Like that line in the poem-a shower of all my days- silvery rain falling all around me, where the lighting meets the earth? The whistle blows below us and the moment breaks. We are safe.For now.

Ally Condie / quote

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09c. 1978 AD

He's throwing everything he can into the air on the chance that something might take flight. And we're the smallest, weakest bird.

Ally Condie / quote

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10c. 1978 AD

My mother looks at me with love and understanding, and I realize: she knows what my father did. She knows what I want. She knows and even though she would not destroy a tissue sample or love someone who is not her Match, she still loves us, even though we have done those things.

Ally Condie / quote

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11c. 1978 AD

It could have been different," I say, almost under my breath. If I'd kissed Indie again after she kissed me. If I hadn't known Cassia before I met Indie."But it's not," Indie says, and she's right.

Ally Condie / quote

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12c. 1978 AD

I'll stand next to that fountain and wait until the Official find me. And when she does and asks me what I'm doing, I'll tell her and everyone else that I know: t hey are giving us pieces of a real life instead of the whole thing. And I'll tell her that I don't want my life to be samples and scraps. A taste of everything but a meal of nothing.

Ally Condie / quote

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13c. 1978 AD

We do not kiss. We do nothing but hold on and breathe, but still I know. I cannot go gently now. Not even for the sake of my parents, my family.Not even for Xander.

Ally Condie / quote

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14c. 1978 AD

One of the things I've always liked about my husband is he's very good at lots of stuff. He was an English teacher when I met him. He wrote poetry and played the guitar. As time went on, he decided to go into economics, so he's very analytical and mathematical in addition to his artsy side.

Ally Condie / quote

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15c. 1978 AD

Being a teen is past for me. Worrying about the world and my place in it is not.

Ally Condie / quote

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16c. 1978 AD

The beauty of dystopia is that it lets us vicariously experience future worlds - but we still have the power to change our own.

Ally Condie / quote

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