Veronica Roth famous quotes

Sometimes, the best way to help someone is just to be near them.
-- Veronica Roth

#Love #Way #Helping

I love the Wikipedia link chain because it has led me into some strange articles. Wikipedia is one of my favorites.
-- Veronica Roth

#Links #Wikipedia #Strange

Change, like healing, takes time.
-- Veronica Roth

#Change #Healing #Tobias

I feel acutely aware of how young I am. In a way that is good. It's productive. It makes me realise that I should be growing as a writer and a person.
-- Veronica Roth

#Way #Growing #Young

In 'Insurgent' we realise how large the world really is
-- Veronica Roth

#World #Realising #Insurgent

The official strategy is defensive pessimism, always.
-- Veronica Roth

#Pessimism #Strategy

Maybe there's more we all could have done, but we just have to let the guilt remind us to do better next time.
-- Veronica Roth

#Guilt #Done #Next

I'm a fairly religious person, so I believe in some things that sound a little crazy I'm sure, depending on where you're standing. I believe in leaving room for things that you can't explain in the universe, and you don't have to be religious to leave room for those things.
-- Veronica Roth

#Religious #Crazy #Believe

Sometimes crying or laughing are the only options left, and laughing feels better right now.
-- Veronica Roth

#Laughter #Feel Better #Hard Times

I try to leave some space in my mind for things to surprise me or change my mind, I think that's important.
-- Veronica Roth

#Thinking #Space #Mind

I keep finding myself stifled by the company of others and then crippled by loneliness when I leave them. I am terrified and I don't even know of what, because I have lost everything already.
-- Veronica Roth

#Loneliness #Tobias #Finding Myself

Sometimes you just need to talk to someone who is detached from you. They just listen to what you tell them and you get to form the way that they see you, whereas everyone else in your life already thinks they know what you're dealing with or what you're going through. That's my recommendation for actual anxiety.
-- Veronica Roth

#Thinking #Anxiety #Way

Do remember, though, that sometimes the people you oppress become mightier than you would like.
-- Veronica Roth

#People #Remember #Sometimes

When you're a teenager, everything seems like the end of the world, and I don't think that's necessarily a silly thing. You're waking up and becoming aware that the world has problems and those problems affect you, whereas when you're young they don't seem to affect you that much even if you're aware of them. This dystopian trend picks up on that little part of your life where everything feels really extreme and it honors that part of your life and says, "Yeah. It is the end of the world. Look at it."
-- Veronica Roth

#Teenager #Silly #Thinking

I have to face the fear. I have to take control of the situation and find a way to make it less frightening.
-- Veronica Roth

#Fear #Inspiration #Way

I slowly realized that perfectionism just not that important. What's more important is to try to love the people around you. Whatever that means at a particular time is the best you can do.
-- Veronica Roth

#Mean #People #Trying

If I let a little of the emotion out, all of it will come out, and it will never end.
-- Veronica Roth

#Littles #Emotion #Ends

I don't want to try to live up to someone who's created something so incredible. I'm just trying to focus on what I'm doing and what I do best. It's sometimes hard to focus in and only think about my books rather than how they measure up to someone else's.
-- Veronica Roth

#Book #Thinking #Focus

But when I do feel all the strength go out of me, and I fall to my knees beside the table and I think I cry, then, or at least I want to, and everything inside me screams for just one more kiss, one more word, one more glance, one more.
-- Veronica Roth

#Fall #Kissing #Thinking

I don't really control the story. I just let it go where it wants to go. I have no idea what's going to happen in the end or who's going to live, so it's kind of like me saying, "I don't know, guys! Just wait." That's what I'm doing!
-- Veronica Roth

#Ideas #Guy #Waiting

I didn't know that idiocy caused people to just start spontaneously bleeding from the nose.
-- Veronica Roth

#People #Bleeding #Noses

I see love developing from friendship. Common ground is a strong basis for friendship. My husband is my best friend and we have a lot in common even though we're admittedly different people. I think it evolves from how I see relationships working. You know, the opposites attract thing happens all the time, but so does the best friends thing. It's just a great kind of relationship in fiction.
-- Veronica Roth

#Strong #Husband #Thinking

What's worse: to be idle while someone dies, or to be exiled and empty-handed?
-- Veronica Roth

#Empty #Idle

Why do people want to pretend that death is sleep? It isn't. It isn't.
-- Veronica Roth

#Sleep #People #Want

What did you do, memorize a map of the city for fun?” says Christina. “Yes,” says Will, looking puzzled. “Didn’t you?
-- Veronica Roth

#Fun #Cities #Maps

I think you're still the only person sharp enough to sharpen someone like me.
-- Veronica Roth

#Thinking #Enough #Stills

I know that I'll be writing for young adults for a long time. Mostly because I just love the readers and the teachers and librarians that I interact with.
-- Veronica Roth

#Teacher #Writing #Long

Human reason can excuse any evil; that is why it's so important that we don't rely on it.
-- Veronica Roth

#Evil #Important #Excuse

What is it with you today?” says Christina on the way to breakfast. Her eyes are still swollen from sleep and her tangled hair forms a fuzzy halo around her face. “Oh, you know,” I say. “Sun shining. Birds chirping.” She raises an eyebrow at me, as if reminding me that we are in an underground tunnel.
-- Veronica Roth

#Sleep #Eye #Hair

Part of me wonders if this is a suicide mission disguised as a game.
-- Veronica Roth

#Suicide #Games #Wonder

I'm sick of doing bad things and liking it and then wondering what's wrong with me. I want it to be over. I want to start again.
-- Veronica Roth

#Sick #Want #Wonder

For a few minutes we kiss, deep in the chasm, with the roar of water all around us. And we rise, hand in hand, I realize that if we had both chosen differently, we might have ended up doing the same thing, in a safer place, in gray clothes instead of black ones.
-- Veronica Roth

#Kissing #Hands #Clothes

We both have war inside us. Sometimes it keeps us alive. Sometimes it threatens to destroy us.
-- Veronica Roth

#War #Alive #Sometimes

It isn’t right to wish pain on other people just because they hurt me first.
-- Veronica Roth

#Hurt #Pain #Broken

I feel like what I have become is halfway between my mother and my father, violent and impulsive and desperate and afraid. I feel like I have lost control of what I have become.
-- Veronica Roth

#Mother #Father #Desperate

I think they're going to force us to eat lots of cake and then take an unreasonably long nap.
-- Veronica Roth

#Thinking #Cake #Naps

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

#Stupid #Useless #Gone

To live factionless Is not just to live in poverty and discomfort; it is to live divorced from society, separated from the most important thing in life: community. My mother once told me that we can’t survive alone,but even if we could, we wouldn’t want to. Without a faction, we have no purpose and no reason to live.
-- Veronica Roth

#Mother #Community #Important

We believe in shouting for those who can only whisper, in defending those who cannot defend themselves.
-- Veronica Roth

#Believe #Shouting

My name is Four,” I say. “Call me ‘Stiff’ again and you and I will have a problem.
-- Veronica Roth

#Names #Four #Problem

It will be difficult to break the habits of thinking Abnegation instilled in me, like tugging a single thread from a complex work of embroidery. But I will find new habits, new thoughts, new rules. I will become something else.
-- Veronica Roth

#Thinking #Embroidery #Tugging

My mother told me once that we can't survive alone, but even if we could, we wouldn't want to. Without a faction we have no purpose and no reason to live.
-- Veronica Roth

#Mother #Purpose #Want

Resisting is worth doing.
-- Veronica Roth

His fingers slide into my hair, and I hold on to his arms to stay steady as we press together like two blades at a stalemate. He is stronger than anyone I know, and warmer than anyone else realizes; he is a secret that I have kept, and will keep for the rest of my life.
-- Veronica Roth

#Hair #Two #Secret

It doesn't prove anything except that you're bullying us. Which, as I recall, is a sign of cowardice.
-- Veronica Roth

#Bullying #Cowardice #Prove

Shh,” I say. “Arms around me.” Obediently, he slips both arms around my waist. I smile at the wall. I am not enjoying this. I am not, not even a little bit, no.
-- Veronica Roth

#Wall #Arms #Littles

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

#Blow #Phrases #Strange

To me, 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

#Pain #Mean #Bears

We believe that preparation eradicates cowardice, which we define as the failure to act in the midst of fear.
-- Veronica Roth

#Fear #Believe #Preparation

She can't possibly be me, though she moves when I move
-- Veronica Roth

#Moving

No matter how long you train someone to be brave, you never know if they are or not until something real happens.
-- Veronica Roth

#Life #Courage #Real

But now, I am also learning this: WE can be mended. We mend each other.
-- Veronica Roth

I watch her blond head until it disappears around the bend, and I feel bare, like there's nothing left to protect me against pain. Her absence stings worst of all.
-- Veronica Roth

#Pain #Watches #Absence

Lies require commitment.
-- Veronica Roth

#Lying #Commitment

Writing means not just staring ugliness in the face, but finding a way to embrace it.
-- Veronica Roth

#Mean #Writing #Way

It reminds me why I chose Dauntless in the first place: not because they are perfect, but because they are alive. Because they are free.
-- Veronica Roth

#Perfect #Firsts #Alive

It's strange how time can make a place shrink, make its strangeness ordinary.
-- Veronica Roth

#Ordinary #Strange

Cruelty does not make a person dishonest, the same way bravery does not make a person kind.
-- Veronica Roth

#Bravery #Way #Doe

Human reason can excuse any evil.
-- Veronica Roth

#Evil #Excuse #Reason

We are not people who touch each other carelessly; every point of contact between us feels important, a rush of energy and relief.
-- Veronica Roth

#People #Important #Relief

...there is power in self-sacrifice.
-- Veronica Roth

#Sacrifice #Self #Selflessness

Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We can’t escape that damage. But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other
-- Veronica Roth

#Moving On #Hope #Hard Times

I want people to come away from my book with questions. Questions about virtue and goodness. Not answers.
-- Veronica Roth

#Badass #Book #People

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

#Sad #Grief #Sorrow

I feel the monster of grief again, writhing in the empty space where my heart and stomach used to be. I gasp, pressing both palms to my chest. Now the monstrous thing has its claws around my throat, squeezing my airway. I twist and put my head between my knees, breathing until the strangled feeling leaves me.
-- Veronica Roth

#Grief #Heart #Breathing

I'll say it one last time: Be brave.
-- Veronica Roth

#Brave #Lasts #Be Brave

Then I realize what it is. It's him. Something about him makes me feel like I am about to fall. Or turn to liquid. Or burst into flames.
-- Veronica Roth

#Love #Relationship #Romantic

Hearing him talk about his mother, about his intact family, makes my chest hurt for a second, like someone pierced it with a needle.
-- Veronica Roth

#Sad #Mother #Missing Someone

We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another.
-- Veronica Roth

#Inspirational #Motivational #Believe

I wonder if fears ever really go away, or if they just lose their power over us.
-- Veronica Roth

#Love #Going Away #Wonder

Every faction conditions its members to think and act a certain way. And most people do it. For most people, it's not hard to learn, to find a pattern of thought that works and stay that way. But our minds move in a dozen different directions. We can't be confined to one way of thinking, and that terrifies our leaders. It means we can't be controlled. And it means that no matter what they do, we will always cause trouble for them.
-- Veronica Roth

#Moving #Mean #Thinking

Reading is such a huge part of my life.
-- Veronica Roth

#Reading

A brave man acknowledges the strength of others.
-- Veronica Roth

#Inspirational #Strength #Inspiring

I am collecting the lessons each faction has to teach me, and storing them in my mind like a guidebook for moving through the world. There is always somthing to learn, always somthing that is important to understand
-- Veronica Roth

#Moving #Mind #Important

You don’t believe things because they make your life better, you believe them because they’re true.
-- Veronica Roth

#Inspirational #Believe #Belief

Pride is what killed Al, and it is the flaw in every Dauntless heart. It is in mine.
-- Veronica Roth

#Heart #Pride #Als

Sorry, am I being rude?" she asks. "I'm used to saying whatever is on my mind. Mom used to say that politeness is deception in pretty packaging
-- Veronica Roth

#Mom #Sorry #Rude

I feel bare. I didn't realize I wore my secrets as armor until they were gone and now everyone sees me as I really am.
-- Veronica Roth

#Secret #Gone #Armor

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

#Laughter #Light #Laughing

I feel like myself, strong and weak at once - allowed, at least for a little while, to be both.
-- Veronica Roth

#Strong #Littles #Tobias

We kiss again and this time, it feels familiar. I know exactly how we fit together, his arm around my waist, my hands on his chest, the pressure of his lips on mine. We have each other memorized.
-- Veronica Roth

#Kissing #Hands #Together

Knowledge is power. Power to do evil...or power to do good. Power itself is not evil. So knowledge itself is not evil.
-- Veronica Roth

#Evil #Knowledge Is Power

Desperation can make a person do surprising things.
-- Veronica Roth

#Desperation #Persons #Surprising

There is a reason you don’t know all the things I know. -Marcus Eaton
-- Veronica Roth

#Reason

By the time we leave, I have red lips and curled eyelashes, and I’m wearing a bright red dress. And there’s a knife strapped to the inside of my knee. This all makes perfect sense.
-- Veronica Roth

#Eyelashes #Knives #Perfect

My first instinct is to push you until you break just to see how hard I have to press.
-- Veronica Roth

#Firsts #Instinct #Break

Christina,'i say,'The factionless have all the guns.
-- Veronica Roth

#Gun

Do you know him well?" I ask.I am too curious; I always have been. "Everyone knows Four," she says. "We were initiates together.I was bad at fighting,so he taught me every night after everyone was asleep." She scratches the back of her neck, her expression suddenly serious. "Nice of him." She gets up and stands behind the members sitting in the doorway. In a second, her serious expression is gone,but I still feel rattled by what she said, half confused by the idea of Four being "nice" and half wanting to punch her for no apparent reason.
-- Veronica Roth

#Nice #Confused #Fighting

Nothing else is alright. But we are. -Tobias
-- Veronica Roth

#Tobias #Alright

I am proud. It will get me into trouble someday, but today it makes me brave
-- Veronica Roth

#Brave #Proud #Today

I love you," I say. I said that once, before I went to Erudite headquarters, but he was asleep then. I don't know why I didn't say it when he could hear it. Maybe I was afraid to trust him with something so personal as my devotion. Or afraid that I did not know what it was to love someone. But now I think the scary thing was not saying it before it was too late. Not saying it before it was almost too late for me.
-- Veronica Roth

#Love You #Thinking #Scary

He looks like a man who has spent most of his life frowning.
-- Veronica Roth

#Men #Looks #Frowning

I am a naturally curious person. -Tris
-- Veronica Roth

#Curious #Tris #Persons

Even though I am still injured, I had to fight again today.Luckily this time,I was paired against Myra,who couldn't throw a good punch if someone was controlling her arm for her.
-- Veronica Roth

#Fighting #Today #Arms

What's your name? Um... Think about it. You don't get to pick again. Tris.
-- Veronica Roth

#Thinking #Names #Tris

You've never had a hamburger before?" asks Christine, her eyes wide. "No," I say. "Is that what it's called?" "Stiffs eat plain food," Four says, nodding at Christina. "Why?" she asks. I shrug. "Extravagance is considered self-indulgent and unnecessary." She smirks. "No wonder you left." "Yeah," I say,rolling my eyes. "It was just because of the food." The corner of Four's mouth twitches.
-- Veronica Roth

#Eye #Self #Smirk

I get the strange urge to hit my head against the wall. Other people's sobs make me feel uncomfortable.
-- Veronica Roth

#Wall #People #Strange

Can you tell me where to find Tobias'? I ask. When I imagine his face, affection for him bubbles up inside of me and all I want to do is kiss him. 'Four, I mean. He's so handsome, isn't he? I don't really understand why he likes me so much. I'm not very nice, am I?' -Tris
-- Veronica Roth

#Nice #Mean #Kissing

Inquisitiveness is self-serving, Johanna. -Marcus Eaton
-- Veronica Roth

#Self

Life's something we already understand. Death is a mystery.
-- Veronica Roth

#Mystery