Veronica Roth Quotes

Intentions are the only thing they care about. 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, they want you to think a certain way. So you're easy to understand. So you wont pose a threat to them.

~ Veronica Roth

A brave man acknowledges the strength of others.

~ Veronica Roth

I have realized that part of being Dauntless is being willing to make things more difficult for yourself in order to be self-sufficient. There's nothing especially brave about wandering dark streets with no flashlight, but we are not supposed to need help, even from light. We are supposed to be capable of anything. I like that. Because there might come a day when there is no flashlight, there is no gun, there is no guiding hand. And I want to be ready.

~ Veronica Roth

I didn't scream I wasn't afraid. I knew I was strong enough to survive it all.

~ Veronica Roth

Pain had a way of breaking time down. I thought about the next minute, the next hour. There wasn't enough space in my mind to put all those pieces together, to find words to summarise the whole of it. But the keep going part, I knew the words for.P151

~ Veronica Roth

Some days are harder than others, but I am ready to live each one of them. I can't sacrifice myself, this time.

~ Veronica Roth

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.

~ Veronica Roth

You’re the one who has to live whit your choice she says.Everyone else will get over it, move on, no matter what you decide. But you never will.

~ Veronica Roth

Ingenuity requires creativity.

~ Veronica Roth

We believe in bravery. We believe in taking action. We believe in freedom from fear and in acquiring the skills to force the bad out of our world so that the good can prosper and thrive. If you also believe in those things, we welcome you.

~ Veronica Roth

I just wanted 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 me - they showed you the test results that proved it. And even I started to believe it.' He touches my face, his thumb skimming my cheekbone, and his eyes are on mine, intense and insistent.'You never believed it,' he says 'Not for a second. You always insisted I was... I don't know, whole.

~ Veronica Roth

It's strange how a word, a phrase, a sentence, can feel like a blow to the head.

~ Veronica Roth

Maybe time would not feel as heavy if I didn't have this guilt - the guilt of knowing the truth and stuffing it down where no one can see it.

~ Veronica Roth

It would be nice if life worked this way, stripping the dirt from our lives and sending us back out into the world clean. But some dirt is destined to lingered.

~ Veronica Roth

I laugh, and it’s laughter, not light, that casts out the darkness building within me, that reminds me I am still alive, even in this strange place whereeverything I’ve ever known is coming apart. I know some things—I know that I’m not alone, that I have friends, that I’m in love. I know where I came from. I know that I don’t want to die, and for me, that’s something—more than I could have said a few weeks ago.

~ Veronica Roth

I laugh, and it's 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 I've ever known is coming apart.

~ Veronica Roth

I hear something in her words that's right, but it's hard to believe her right now.

~ Veronica Roth

In that moment I’m able to accept the inevitability of how I feel, though not with joy. I need to talk to someone. I need to trust someone. And for whatever reason, I know, I know it’s her.

~ Veronica Roth

A son says to his Mother: Mother, today I fought with my friend.His Mother says: Why did you fight with your friend?Because he demanded something of me, and I would not give it to him.Why did you not give it to him?Because it was mine.My son, you now have possessions, but you do not have your friend. Which would you rather have?My friend.Then give freely, trusting that you will also be given what you need.

~ Veronica Roth

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

~ Veronica Roth

Can I be forgiven for all I've done to get here?I want to be.I can.I believe it.

~ Veronica Roth

I understand why she did all those things, but that doesn't mean we aren't still broken.

~ Veronica Roth

When someone wrongs you, you both share the burden of that wrongdoing - the pain of it weighs on both of you. Forgiveness, then, means choosing to bear the full weight all by yourself.

~ Veronica Roth

I have been able to be kind and pleasant to him because every time I think of what happened in Erudite headquarters, I immediately push the thought aside. But that can't be forgiveness - if I had forgiven him, I would be able to think of what happened without that hated I can feel in my gut, right?Or maybe forgiveness is just the continual pushing aside of bitter memories, until time dulls the hurt and the anger, and the wrong is forgotten.

~ Veronica Roth

It reminds me that no embrace will ever feel the same again, because no one will ever be like her again, because she's gone. She's gone, and crying feels so useless, so stupid, but it's all I can do.

~ Veronica Roth

I confessed to Tobias, soon after that, that I had lost my entire family.And he assured me that he was my family now. -Tris Prior

~ Veronica Roth

You don't have to tell me everything right away, but I have to tell you everything right away? Can't you see how stupid that is?

~ Veronica Roth

Grief is not as heavy as guilt, but it takes more away from you.

~ Veronica Roth

It happened. It was awful. You aren't perfect. That's all there is. Don't confuse your grief with guilt.We stay in the silence and the loneliness of the otherwise empty dormitory for a few more minutes, and I try to let her words work themselves into me.

~ Veronica Roth

I was angry with him before. I’m not really sure why. Maybe I was just angry that the world had become such a complicated place, that I have never known even a fraction of the truth about it. Or that I allowed myself to grieve for someone who was never really gone, the same way I grieved for my mother all the years I thought she was dead. Tricking someone into grief is one of the cruelest tricks a person can play, and it’s been played on me twice.

~ Veronica Roth

I have discovered that sitting still leaves little spaces for the grief to get in, so I stay busy.

~ Veronica Roth

He still smiles all the time, but now his smiles look like they're made out of water, about to drip down his face.

~ Veronica Roth

I don't want to cry for Edward- at least not in the deep, personal way that you cry for a friend or loved one. I want to cry because something terrible happened, and I saw it, and I could not see a way to mend it.

~ Veronica Roth

I grabbed hold of my Divergence like it was a hand outstretched to save me. I needed that word to tell me who I was when everything else was coming apart around me. But now I'm wondering if I need it anymore, if we ever really need these words, 'Dauntless,' 'Erudite,' 'Divergent,' Allegiant,' or if we can just be friends or lovers or siblings, defined instead by the choices we make and the love and loyalty that binds us.

~ Veronica Roth

Sometimes I feel like we are the same, but sometimes, like right now, I feel the separation between our personalities like I've just run into a wall.

~ Veronica Roth

I close my eyes. I don't expect Four to reassure me, and he makes no effort to, but I feel better standing here than I did out there among the people who are my friends, my faction.

~ Veronica Roth

The tunnel is lit at long intervals, so in the dark space between each dim lamp, I fear that I am lost until a shoulder bumps mine. In the circles of light I am safe again.

~ Veronica Roth

Or maybe we'll make a home somewhere inside ourselves, to carry with us wherever we go- which is the way I carry my mother now.

~ Veronica Roth

When her body first hit the net, all I registered was a gray blur. I pulled her across it and her hand was small, but warm, and then she stood before me, short and thin and plain and in all ways unremarkable- except that she had jumped first. The stiff had jumped first.Even I didn't jump first.Her eyes were so stern, so insistent.Beautiful.

~ Veronica Roth

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

~ Veronica Roth