Quotes by Suzanne Collins

I know Ill never marry, never risk bringing a child into the world. Because if theres one thing being a victor doesnt guarantee, its our childrens safety. My kids names would go right into the reaping balls with everyone elses. And I swear Ill never let that happen.

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

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

I search his eyes for the slightest sign of anything, fear, remorse, anger. But theres only the same look of amusement that ended our last conversation. Its as if hes speaking the words again. Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had agreed not to lie to each other.Hes right. We did.The point of my arrow shifts upward. I release the string. And President Coin collapses over the side of the balcony and plunges to the ground. Dead.

I am Cinnas bird, ignited, flying frantically to escape something inescapable. The feathers of flame that grow from my body. Beating my wings only fans the blaze. I consume myself, but to no end.Finally, my wings begin to falter, I lose height, and gravity pulls me into a foamy sea the color of Finnicks eyes. I float on my back, which continues to burn beneath the water, but the agony quiets to pain. When I am adrift and unable to navigate, thats when they come. The dead.The ones I loved fly as birds in the open sky above me. Soaring, weaving, calling to me to join them. I want so badly to follow them, but the seawater saturates my wings, making it impossible to lift them. The ones I hated have taken to the water, horrible scaled things that tear my salty flesh with needle teeth. Biting again and again. Dragging me beneath the surface.The small white bird tinged in pink dives down, buries her claws in my chest, and tries to keep me afloat.No, Katniss! No! You cant go!But the ones I hated are winning, and if she clings to me, shell be lost as well. Prim, let go! And finally she does.

I think about going to the lake, but Im so weak that I barely make it to mymeeting place with Gale. I sit on the rock where Cressida filmed us, but its too wide without his body beside me.Several times I close my eyes and count to ten, thinking that when I open them, he will have materialized without a sound as he so often did. I have to remind myself that Gales in 2 with a fancy job, probably kissing another pairof lips.

Courage only counts when you can count.

Because sometimes things happen to people and theyre not equipped to deal with them.

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.

Glimmer, I hear someone call her - ugh, the names the people in District 1 give their children are so ridiculous ...

My children, who dont know they play on a graveyard.

I just dont want them to change me, if Im going to die I still want to be me.

Were victors, remember? Were the ones who can survive anything they throw at us

Either you came in here a swimmer or youd better be a really fast learner

The beauty of this idea is that my decision to keep Peeta alive at the expense of my own life is itself an act of defiance. A refusal to play the Hunger Games by the Capitols rules. My private agenda dovetails completely with my public one. And if I really could save Peeta... in terms of a revolution, this would be ideal. Because I will be more valuable dead. They can turn me into some kind of martyr for the cause and paint my face on banners, and it will do more to rally people than anything I could do if I was living. But Peeta would be more valuable alive, and tragic, because he will be able to turn his pain into words that will transform people.

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

Im left staring up at the night sky the only roof left because to many memories are drowning me.

Im ordered to a week of bed rest and I dont object because I feel so lousy. Not just my heel and my tailbone. My whole body aches with exhaustion. So I let my mother doctor me and feed me breakfast in bed and tuck another quilt around me. Then I just lie there, staring out my window at the winter sky, pondering how on earth this will all turn out.

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 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.