"But I don't know what to him about the aftermath of killing a person. About how they never leave you."

"But for better or worse, I am not motivated by kindness."

"And then he gives me a smile that just seems so genuinely sweet with just the right touch of shyness that unexpected warmth rushes through me."

"An ability to look into the confusing mess of life and see things for what they are."

"Here's some advice. Stay alive."

"I know I'll never marry, never risk bringing a child into the world. Because if there's one thing being a victor doesn't guarantee, it's our children's safety. My kids' names would go right into the reaping balls with everyone else's. And I swear I'll never let that happen."

"Have I gone mad like Anne and no one has the heart to tell me? I wish someone would tell me, I feel crazy enough though."

"The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that."

"You could do a lot worse."

"One of the reasons it's important for me to write about war is I really think that the concept of war, the specifics of war, the nature of war, the ethical ambiguities of war, are introduced too late to children. I think they can hear them, understand them, know about them, at a much younger age without being scared to death by the stories."

"I'm left staring up at the night sky the only roof left because to many memories are drowning me."

"I stand there unmoving while they take part in the boldest form of dissent they can manage. Silence."

"My sleep wasn't peaceful, though. I have the sense of emerging from a world of dark, haunted places where I traveled alone."

"I'm going to wake Peeta," I say."No, wait," says Finnick. "Let's do it together. Put our faces right in front of his."Well, there's so little opportunity for fun left in my life, I agree. We position ourselves on either side of Peeta, lean over until our faces are inches frim his nose, and give him a shake. "Peeta. Peeta, wake up," I say in a soft, singsong voice.His eyelids flutter open and then he jumps like we've stabbed him. "Aa!"Finnick and I fall back in the sand, laughing our heads off. Every time we try to stop, we look at Peeta's attempt to maintain a disdainful expression and it sets us off again."

"I go back to my room and lie under the covers, trying not to think of Gale and thinking of nothing else."

"You'll never be able to let him go. You'll always feel wrong about being with me."

"But a shift has occurred since I stepped up to take Prim's place, and now it seems I have become someone precious. At first one, then another, then almost every member of the crowd touches the three middle fingers of their left hand to their lips and holds it out to me. It is an old and rarely used gesture of our district, occasionally seen at funerals. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means good-bye to someone you love."

"Live your life, take chances, be crazy. Dont wait 'cause right now is the oldest you've ever been & the youngest you'll be ever again."

"He hates me more," says Peeta. "I don't think people in general are his sort of thing."

"People of Panem, we fight, we dare, we end our hunger for justice! There's dead silence on the set. It goes on. And on. Finally, the intercom crackles and Haymitch's acerbic laugh fills the studio. He contains himself just long enough to say, "And that, my friends, is how a revolution dies."

"Even if times got bad, he would never again deny himself the possibility that the future might be happy even if the present was painful. He would allow himself dreams."

"If he goes and dies on me now, I know I'll go completely insane."

"You love me. Real or not real?"I tell him, "Real."

"I think....you still have no idea. The effect you can have."

"I realize, for the first time, how very lonely I've been in the arena. How comforting the presence of another human being can be."

"I can't go down without a fight. Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to, to show the Capitol they don't own me. That I'm more than just a piece in their Games."

"I no longer feel any allegiance to these monsters called human beings, despise being one myself."

"But it's not safe and I can feel him slipping away, so I just get out one more sentence. "Stay with me." As the tendrils of sleep syrup pull me down, I hear him whisper a word back but I don't catch it."

"Remember that even in war there is a time for restraint. A time to hold back your sword."

"She's really gone, then. The little girl with the back of her shirt sticking out like a duck tail, the one who needed help reaching the dishes, and who begged to see the frosted cakes in the bakery window. Time and tragedy have forced her to grow too quickly, at least for my taste, into a young woman who stitches beeding wounds and knows our mother can hear only so much."

"Greed and corruption isn't in the world.It's in the people"."

"And he would put his arms around her and hold her, but he had no idea what to tell her. In his mind, Gregor knew how to kill things, not bring them back ti life."

"Embrace the probability of your imminent death....and know there is nothing i can do to save you."

"Never was I supposed to hear the words 'He says he wants to see you.' But now that I have, there's no way to refuse."

"Don't. Don't let's pretend when there's no one around."

"If I took the 40 years of my dad talking to me about war and battles and taking me to battlefields and distilled it down into one question, it would probably be the idea of the necessary or unnecessary war."

"They're a little strange, but I'm pretty sure neither of them is going to try to make me uncomfortable by stripping naked."

"Shame isn't a strong enough word for what I feel. "You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, you know," Haymitch says."

"His face and arms are so artfully disguised as to be invisible. I kneel beside him. "I guess all those hours decorating cakes paid off. Peeta smiles. "Yes, frosting. The final defense of the dying."

"And don't you let your guard down for a second because you think anything's inevitable."

"As we ride the elevator Gale finally says "You're still angry."And you're still not sorry, I reply."I will stand by what I said. Do you want me to lie about it? he asks."No, I want you to rethink it and come up with the right opinion, I tell him."

"I thought he wanted it, anyway," I say. "Not like this," Haymitch says. "He wanted it to be real."

"Dead, but not allowed to die. Alive, but as good as dead."

"He wanted to stay there forever, letting her soothe him, pretending he was just a kid and his mom could make everything okay."

"The evil thing is inside, not out."

"Anyone? On Snow's visit before the Victory Tour, he challenged me to erase any doubts of my love for Peeta. "Convince me," Snow said. It seems, under that hot pink sky with Peeta's life in limbo, I finally did. And In doing so, I gave him the weapon he needed to break me."

"Slowly, with many lost days, I come back to life."

"You here to finish me off, Sweetheart?"

"And it's all my fault, Gale. Because of what I did in the arena. If I had just killed myself with those berries, none of this would've happened. Peeta could have come home and lived, and everyone else would have been safe, too."Safe to do what? he says in a gentler tone. "Starve? Work like slaves? Send their kids to the reaping? You haven't hurt people " you've given them an opportunity. They just have to be brave enough to take it."

"I am not pretty. I am not beautiful. I am as radiant as the sun."