You’ve changed me forever. And I’ll never forget you.
I want everything with you, America. I want the holidays and the birthdays, the busy season and lazy weekends. I want peanut butter fingertips on my desk. I want inside jokes and fights and everything. I want a life with you.
Sometimes I feel like we’re a knot, too tangled to be taken apart.
He must love you very much,’ Gavril said once I had my footing.I couldn’t look at him. ‘What makes you say that?’ Gavril sighed. ‘I’ve known Maxon since he was a child. He’s never stood up to his father like that.
What am I supposed to call you?””Your Royal Husbandness. It’s required by law, I’m afraid.
Try patting them on the back or shoulder and telling them everything is going to be fine. Lots of times when girls cry, they don’t want you to fix the problem, they just want to be consoled.
Live your life. Be happy as you can be, let go of the things that don’t matter, and fight.
Beauty is subjective. You know how sometimes what makes a person attractive is the way they make you laugh or how it seems like they can read your mind?
Maxon: “To be clear, no one agrees with you.”America: “To be clear, I don’t care.
When we met, you couldn’t stop staring at my breasts.”His face went pale, as if he seriously thought he was so subtle no one would notice. “Make sure you get an equally satisfactory look a my backside as you leave.
Books were a safe place, a world apart from my own. No matter what had happened that day, that year, there was always a story in which someone overcame their darkest hour. I wasn’t alone.
It was almost comforting, this mutual acceptance of our secrets.
You think you walk, Lucy? I think you fly. You see yourself in a uniform? I see you in a cape. You’re a hero, of the quietest but most genuine nature.
Every day you say something or do something that challenges me, changes me.
You know, I once read a book about people who practiced polygamy. One man with several wives. Crazy. I was just in a room with eight very unhappy woman and I have no idea why anyone would choose that.
Whatever happened, I’d met my person, the one my soul connected to.
I love you beyond paint, beyond melodies, beyond words. And I hope you will always feel that, even when I’m not around to tell you so.
Well, the one thing I’ve thought about is having dad give me away. You know when he takes your hand and he puts it in the hand of the person you marry? That’s the only part I’ve ever wanted.
It makes the idea of in sickness and in health that much more real to see it play out in front of you.
You are not the world, but you are everything that makes the world good. Without you, my life would still exist, but that’s all it would manage to do.
I’m happy, Ahren. I’m a princess. I have everything.””I think you’re mistaking comfort for joy.
It was dark, so I couldn’t make out much of her face, but she had brilliant red hair, like honey and roses and the sun altogether.
When my father is stern, no one chastises him. I don’t think it’s fair that when I act similarly, I’m seen as cruel. I’m making a huge decision, and I’m trying to be wise about it.
You can be brave and still be feminine. You can lead and still love flowers.
We know you’re strong, but accepting help is its own kind of strength.
I’m not sure if fate or destiny is real. But I can tell you that sometimes the very thing you’ve been hoping for will walk through the door, determined to fend you off. And still, somehow, you will find that you are enough.
I will never forget your fire. I can’t wait to see what you do.
I’ve tried to make choices. You don’t really trust me to.
You were the one who changed us when you left me in the tree house; and you keep thinking that if you push hard enough, you can make everything go back to before that moment. It doesn’t work that way. Give me a chance to choose you.
It doesn’t really matter how you feel about your character, it just matters what you do with it.
Break my heart for what breaks yours. Everything I am for you kingdom’s cause, as I walk from nothing to eternity.
Heal my heart and make it clean, open up my eyes to the things unseen, show me how to love like you have loved me.
For the first time maybe ever, it didn’t matter if I looked beautiful or not. I felt it.
I felt a warm hand touch my forehead. And then my cheek. I held my act steady though Akinli’s touch made me feel more than awake.“Where in the world did you come from, you beautiful, silent girl?” he whispered.
In an instant, everything in the room came alive. Like the sunshine had a melody and the sounds of footsteps had a texture I could feel in my fingertips each time anyone moved
There’s a different kind of beauty that comes with humility and honesty
I would be the best of us, the highest of the lows.
I’m not sure anyone knows what they’re looking for until they find it
I hope you find someone you can’t live without.I really do. And I hope you never have to know what it’s like to have to try and live without them.
If you don’t want me to be in love with you, you’re going to have to stop looking so lovely. First thing tomorrow I’m having your maids sew some potato sacks together for you.
You get confused by crying women, I get confused by walks with princes.
I hit your thigh!”“Oh, please. A man doesn’t need that long to recover from a knee to the thigh.
I can’t help it.” I sighed. “One can never help being born into perfection.
I should have known that if any girl was going to disobey an order, it would be you.
Listen to me, kitten. Win or lose, you’ll always be a princess to me.
P.S. May, don’t these strawberry tarts just make you want to cry?
Need someone to talk to? I could tug my ear right now.
I guessed princesses-in-training didn’t wear pants.
The Selection was no longer something that was simply happening to me, but something I was actively a part of. I was an Elite.
…I want it to be as easy as breathing for you to say yes.
The Angeles air was quiet, and for a while I laid still, listening to the sound of Maxon breathing.
The look in Marlee’s eyes was triumphant, and the smile hiding behind her cup of tea said, ‘Gotcha’!
I looked at his face, unsure of how many more of his smiles I’d have.
I wanted everything from and everything for him, because I wanted every piece of him.
Something about being that close to him all the time made my bones feel weak.
I was stunned into silence, the way I always was when he touched the sky places of my heart.
We’ll when he lets his guard down he’s okay. Like when he just talks without checking his words or you catch him just looking at something like… He’s really looking for the beauty in it.
How had I lost so much in such a short period of time? It would seem like leaving your family, living in some foreign place, and being separated from the person you love should be events that take years to roll into place, not just a day.
I know there was a time, when our country was new, when the assignment of these numbers helped organize something that was on the brink of not existing. But we are no longer that country. We are so much more now.
America, I don’t think you can change history.” All the same, his expression looked hopeful.”Sure we can. Besides, who’d ever know about it but you and me?
If this were a simpler matter, I’d have eliminated everyone else by now. I know how I feel about you. Maybe it’s impulsive of me to think I could be so sure, but I’m certain I would be happy with you.
Because even though you’re dating five other women, I think I’m cheating on you.
– Just that. Your family must be very different from mine.- I’d say so. – I laughed. – For one, no one wears their tiaras to breakfast.- Maxon smiled. – More of a dinner thing at the Singer house?”- “Of course.
You’re too beautiful for your own good. Once you leave, we’ll have to send some of the guards with you. You’ll never survive on your own, poor thing.
He reached up and tugged his ear. And I did the same.
No wonder I’d never had any friends. I was shockingly bad at it.
The Swendish queen— whose name I couldn’t pronounce to save my life.
Yeah, Mom, I’ll just keep telling the prince that he has absolutely no shot with me and offend him as often as I can. Great plan.
if you like the lovable sound of an asthma attack in your ear every time you tell a joke.
The picture of me just after I’d found out Aspen was saving up to marry me. I looked radiant, hopeful, beautiful. I looked like I was in love. And some idiot thought that love was for Prince Maxon.
My shoes I got to pick. I chose worn-out red flats. I figured I should make it clear from the start that I wasn’t princess material.
So here I was expecting at the very best a cordial welcome from the girls who were prepared to fight me to the death for someone I didn’t want. Instead I was embraced.
I don’t think any girl in all of Illéa could have been smiling more than me.
I had to stop myself from laughing. Who needs help taking a pill?
He wasn’t allowed to come with me there—my own rule for thislittle adventure.No more.Good-bye, Aspen.
So far, I had a solid collection of my honest opinions…
She must have been debating staying in the line or forcing me to run home and change.
And Carolina will be cheering on the beautiful daughter of Magda and Shalom Singer, the new Lady America Singer!
I thought about the cameras following me in the terminal and pictured my family watching my entrance on TV. I hoped they’d be proud.
Cinderella never asked for a prince. She asked for a night off and a dress.
Maybe it’s not the first kisses that are meant to be special. Maybe it’s the last ones.
I’d waited an eternity for this. I’d have waited all over again if I had to. I was meant to kiss this boy, designed to be held by him.
When you know who matters most to you, giving things up, even yourself, doesn’t really feel like a sacrifice.
Prince Maxon surveyed the room and found me. Our eye met for a moment, and he smiled.
You might not want to fight for the things that others would fight for, like money or notoriety, but fight all the same. Whatever it is that you want, go after it with all that you have in you.
You have to embrace the idea of imperfection, even in the thing that is most perfect for you.
What’s it like to be in love?””It’s the most wonderful and terrible thing that can ever happen to you,
When we died, no one would know, and that fraction of a moment that was so important to who we were would be gone.
Let her go!” That was a new voice, young but full of authority. … There was Prince Maxon….”Open the doors.””But-Your Majesty-“”Open the doors now and let her go. Now!
Would you like me to let you go home to your love today?” he asked. It was obvious that my preference for someone else bothered him, but instead of choosing to ve angry, he showed compassion.
Please don’t cry, darling. I’d spare you tears for the rest of your life if I could
Elizabeth nodded, looking too dejected to do much more. “Can she just go back to him?” she pleaded. “He’s dying. She’s dying. They can’t have a life together, but at least they could have th
But if it was always a point of speculation, where one person insisted it was a certain way and another denied it, how would anyone ever hold on to the truth?
I had been so mad at him when I left, I’d given them back. All except for the one that stuck to the bottom of the jar.He smiled. “They’re at home, waiting.””For what?”His eyes glittered. “That, I cannot say.
It’s amazing how photography can capture just a split second of something exquisite.
Luck was fine and well, but I didn’t need it. I had a plan.
It was over, and I knew that. But you don’t love someone for almost two years and then turn it off overnight…
Eventually you will find something to put that energy into and you will be unstoppable. Even now with something you take no joy in, you do your task dutifuly, because it’s all you can do. There’s something beautiful in that, Collin.
It was a delicious feeling, falling in love. I’d had so many luxuries in my life, and I thought I’d had a taste of this before, but I realized now it was merely a cheap imitation of something not meant to be imitated in the first place.
And when he broke, it was a miracle he managed to find all the pieces of himself again.
That’s why you can’t give up. Heroes don’t give up.
Sometimes you have to give the hurt a noise and let it out. If you don’t, it fills you up with its emptiness.
You can be quiet and go back to kissing me, or you can leave.
But I guessed she would never stop wanting more for me, more from me. Maybe that’s what mothers did.
Could it be that simple? Tell one story to one generation and repeat it until it was accepted as fact?