I haven't even begun to separate out my feelings about Peeta. It's too complicated. What I did as part of the Games. As opposed to what I did out of anger at the Capitol. Or because of how it would be viewed back in District 12. Or simply because it was the only decent thing to do. Or what I did because I cared about him.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
The Hunger Games - Pg 358
The Hunger Games - Pg 324
I've spent so much time making sure I don't underestimate my opponents that I've forgotten it's just as dangerous to overestimate them as well.
The Hunger Games - Pg 300
"He said, 'See that little girl? I wanted to marry her mother, but she ran off with a coal miner,'" Peeta says. "True story. And I said, 'A coal miner? Why did she want a coal miner if she could've had you?' And he said, 'Because when he sings... even the birds stop to listen.'"
The Hunger Games - Pg 298
As we settle in, he pulls my head down to use his arm as a pillow; the other rests protectively over me even when he goes to sleep. No one has held me like this in such a long time. Since my father died and I stopped trusting my mother, no one else's arms have made me feel this safe.
The Hunger Games - Pg 288
Conflicting emotions cross Thresh's face. He lowers the rock and points at me, almost accusingly. "Just this one time, I let you go. For the little girl. You and me, we're even then. No more owed. You understand?"
I nod because I do understand. About owing. About hating it. I understand that if Thresh wins, he'll have to go back and face a district that has already broken all the rules to thank me, and he is breaking the rules to thank me, too.
The Hunger Games - Pg 263
I spend the night half-sitting, half-lying next to Peeta, refreshing the bandage, and trying not to dwell on the fact that by teaming up with him, I've made myself far more vulnerable than when I was alone. Tethered to the ground, on guard, with a very sick person to take care of. But I knew he was injured. And still I came after him. I'm just going to have to trust that whatever instinct sent me to find him was a good one.
The Hunger Games - Pg 237
It doesn't take long, then the general birdsong begins again and I know she's gone.
Another mockingjay, a young one by the look of it, lands on a branch before me and bursts out Rue's melody. My song, the hovercraft, were too unfamiliar for this novice to pick up, but it has mastered her handful of notes. The one's that mean she's safe.
The Hunger Games - Pg 234
Sing. My throat is tight with tears, hoarse from smoke and fatigue. But if this is Rue's last request, I have to at least try. The song that comes to me is a simple lullaby, one we sing fretful, hungry babies to sleep with. It's old, very old I think. Made up long ago in our hills. What my music teacher calls a mountain air. But the words are easy and soothing, promising tomorrow will be more hopeful than this awful piece of time we call today.
The Hunger Games - Pg 224
His rage is so extreme it might be comical--so people really do tear out their hair and beat the ground with their fists--if I didn't know that it was aimed at me, at what I have done to him. Add to that my proximity, my inability to run or defend myself, and in fact, the whole thing has me terrified.
The Hunger Games - Pg 137
I can't help feeling guilty. Tomorrow we will be in the arena. He has done me a favor and I have answered with an injury. Will I never stop owing him?
The Hunger Games - Pg 99
I make a sound that is somewhere between a snort and a laugh. Then catch myself. It's messing with my mind too much, trying to keep straight when we're supposedly friends and when we're not. At least when we get into the arena, I'll know where we stand. "Don't. Don't let's pretend when there's no one around."
"All right, Katniss," he says tiredly. After that, we only talk in front of people.
The Hunger Games - Pg 98
"And there you have it," says Peeta, scooping the breads back in the basket.
"You certainly know a lot," I say.
"Only about bread," he says. "Okay, now laugh as if I've said something funny."
We both give a somewhat convincing laugh and ignore the stares from around the room.
"All right, I'll keep smiling pleasantly and you talk."
The Hunger Games - Pg 97
We try to keep up a friendly conversation during the meals. It's not easy to find a topic. Talking of home is painful. Talking of the present unbearable.
The Hunger Games - Pg 21
That's how I feel now, trying to remember how to breathe, unable to speak, totally stunned as the name bounces around the inside of my skull. Someone is gripping my arm, a boy from the Seam, and I think maybe I started to fall and he caught me.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
The Giver - Pg 174
Once he had yearned for choice. Then, when he had a choice, he had made the wrong one: the choice to leave. And now he was starving. But if he had stayed... His thoughts continued. If he had stayed, he would have starved in other ways. He would have lived a life hungry for feelings, for color, for love. And Gabriel? For Gabriel there would have been no life at all. So there had not really been a choice.
The Giver - Pg 164
He felt a very deep sadness that he had left his closest friend behind. He knew that in the danger of his escape he must be absolutely silent; but with his heart and mind, he called back and hoped that with his capacity for hearing-beyond, The Giver would know that Jonas had said goodbye.
The Giver - Pg 127
"Do you love me?" There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then Father gave a little chuckle. "Jonas. You, of all people. Precision of language, please!" "What do you mean?" Jonas asked. Amusement was not at all what he had anticipated. "Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it's become almost obsolete," his mother explained carefully. Jonas stared at them. Meaningless? He had never before felt anything as meaningful as the memory. "And of course our community can't function smoothly if people don't use precise language. You could ask, 'Do you enjoy me?' The answer is 'Yes,'" his mother said. "Or," his father suggested, "'Do you take pride in my accomplishments?' And the answer is wholeheartedly 'Yes.'" "Do you understand why it's inappropriate to use a word like 'love'?" Mother asked. Jonas nodded. "Yes, thank you, I do," he replied slowly. It was his first lie to his parents.
The Giver - Pg 126
"Well," he said finally, grasping for an explanation, "they had fire right there in that room. There was a fire burning in the fireplace. And there were candles on a table. I can certainly see why those things were outlawed.
"Still," he said slowly, almost to himself, "I did like the light they made. And the warmth."
The Giver - Pg 122
He had walked through woods, and sat at night beside a campfire. Although he had through the memories learned about the pain of loss and loneliness, now he gained, too, an understanding of solitude and its joy.
The Giver - Pg 121
Jonas did not want to go back. He didn't want the memories, didn't want the honor, didn't want the wisdom, didn't want the pain. He wanted his childhood again, his scraped knees and ball games. He sat in his dwelling alone, watching through the window, seeing children at play, citizens bicycling home from uneventful days at work, ordinary lives free of anguish because he had been selected, as others before him had, to bear their burden.
But the choice was not his. He returned each day to the Annex room.
The Giver - Pg 119
The colors of the carnage were grotesquely bright: the crimson wetness on the rough and dusty fabric, the ripped shreds of grass, startlingly green, in the boy's yellow hair.
The Giver - Pg 83
The old man laughed. "All I gave you was one ride, on one sled, in one snow, on one hill. I have a whole world of them in my memory. I could give them to you one by one, a thousand times, and there would still be more."
The Giver - Pg 64
"I don't understand it yet. I don't know what it is. But sometimes I see something. And maybe it's beyond."
The Giver - Pg 60
Earlier that day, dressing in his own dwelling, he had practiced the kind of jaunty, self-assured walk that he hoped he could make to the stage when his turn came. All of that was forgotten now. he simply willed himself to stand, to move his feet that felt weighted and clumsy, to go forward, up the steps and across the platform until he stood at her side.
The Giver - Pg 59
Jonas moved his hands together, clapping, but it was an automatic, meaningless gesture that he wasn't even aware of. His mind had shut out all of the earlier emotions: the anticipation, excitement, pride, and even the happy kinship with his friends. Now he felt only humiliation and terror.
The Giver - Pg 6
"I feel a little sorry for him," Jonas said, "even though I don't even know him. i feel sorry for anyone who is in a place where he feels strange and stupid."
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Shutter Island - Pg 212
She was so simply his love, his girl, watching him approach as if she were memorizing him and his walk and those flowers and this moment, and he wanted to ask her what sound a heart made when it broke from pleasure, when just the sight of someone filled you the way food, blood, and air never could, when you felt as if you'd been born for only one moment, and this, for whatever reason, was it.
Shutter Island - Pg 86
"How many psychiatrists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"
"I don't know. How many?"
"Eight."
"Why?"
"Oh, stop overanalyzing it."
Shutter Island - Pg 81
We were supposed to grow old together, Dolores. Have kids. Take walks under old trees. I wanted to watch the lines etch themselves into your flesh and know when each and every one of them appeared. Die together.
Shutter Island - Pg 21
No matter how much he'd learned to carry it, carry her, the weight could wear him down every now and then.
Shutter Island - Pg 13
You told yourself it was okay--because that's what you had to do to cross a body of water--but it wasn't.
Shutter Island - Pg 9
He'd cut himself a few times, and the blood dotted his fingertips and smeared his palms.
The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Pg 171
At times, there in heaven, the two of them would lie down together. But they did not sleep. On earth, Marguerite said, when you fell asleep, you sometimes dreamed your heaven and those dreams helped to form it. But there was no reason for such dreams now. Instead, Eddie held her shoulders and nuzzled in her hair and took long, deep breaths.
The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Pg 168
And even though she was sitting in the seat next to him, Eddie felt her in everything, in the steering wheel, in the gas pedal, in the blinking of his eye, in the clearing of his throat. Every move he made was about hanging on to her.
The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Pg 166
The waters of their love fell again from above and soaked them as surely as the sea that gathered at their feet.
The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Pg 166
Marguerite said something about the bikini bathing suits the young girls were wearing and how she would never have the nerve to wear such a thing. Eddie said the girls were lucky, because if she did the men would not look at anyone else. And even though by this point Marguerite was in her mid-40's and her hips had thickened and a web of small lines had formed around her eyes, she thanked Eddie gratefully and looked at his crooked nose and wide jaw.
The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Pg 57
Young men go to war. Sometimes because they have to, sometimes because they want to. Always, they feel they are supposed to. This comes from the sad, layered stories of life, which over the centuries have seen courage confused with picking up arms, and cowardice confused with laying them down.
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