Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

"But more words tumble out. 'You're a painter. You're a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. And you always double-knot your shoelaces.'Then I dive into my tent before I do something stupid like cry."

"I knew you'd kiss me."How" I say. Because I didn't know myself. "Because I am in pain," He say's. "That's the only way I get your attention."

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

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

"Katniss. I remember about the bread."

"Sorry excuses for hunters and friends. Both of us."

"Haymitch isn't thinking of arenas, but something else. "Johanna's back in the hospital."I assumed Johanna was fine, had passed her exam, but simply wasn't assigned to a sharp shooters' unit. She's wicked with a throwing axe but about average with a gun. "Is she hurt? What happened"It was while she was on the Block. They try to ferret out a soldier's potential weakness. So they flooded the street, " says Haymitch. This doesn't help. Johanna can swim. At least, I seem to remember her swimming around some in the Quarter Quell. Not like Finnick, of course, but none of us are like Finnick. "So"That's how they tortured her in the Capitol. Soaked her then used electric shocks," says Haymitch. "In the Block, she had some kind of flashback. Panicked, didn't know where she was. She's back under sedation." Finnick and I just stand there as if we've lost the ability to respond. I think of the way Johanna never showers. How she forced herself into the rain like it was acid that day. I had attributed her misery to morphling withdrawal. "You two should go see her. You're as close to friends as she's got," says Haymitch. That makes the whole thing worse. I don't really know what's between Johanna and Finnick, but I hardly know her. No family. No friends. Not so much as a token from District 7 to set beside her regulation clothes in her anonymous drawer. Nothing."

"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."

"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."

"I’m not flailing now, as my muscles are rigid with the tension of holding myself together. The pain over my heart returns, and from it I imagine tiny fissures spreading out into my body. Through my torso, down my arms and legs, over my face, leaving it crisscrossed with cracks. One good jolt … and I could shatter into strange, razor-sharp shards."

"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."

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

"We're victors, remember? We're the ones who can survive anything they throw at us"

"They play in the Meadow. The dancing girl with the dark hair and blue eyes. The boy with blond curls and gray eyes, struggling to keep up with her on his chubby toddler legs. It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly. When I first felt her stirring inside of me, I was consumed with a terror that felt as old as life itself. Only the joy of holding her in my arms could tame it."

"What will break me into a million pieces so that I am beyond repair, beyond usefulness?"

"If there's a more helpless feeling than trying to reach someone you love who's trapped underground, I don't know it."

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

"But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction."

"It’s a saying from thousands of years ago, written in a language called Latin about a place called Rome,” he explains. “Panem et Circenses translates into ‘Bread and Circuses.’ The writer was saying that in return for full bellies and entertainment, his people had given up their political responsibilities and therefore their power."

"He wants as many victors as possible for the cameras to follow in the Capitol. Thinks it makes for better television."Are you and Beetee going" I ask."As many young and attractive victors as possible," Haymitch corrects himself. "So, no. We'll be here."