Suzanne Collins (2009)
This is what President Snow calls an uprising.
Chapter 6
Part 1: The Spark
Chapter 1
“I can’t fight the sun. I can only watch helplessly as it drags me into a day that I’ve been dreading for months.”
“Not only are we in the districts forced to remember the iron grip of the Capitol’s power each year, we are forced to celebrate it.”
“The sun persists in rising, so I make myself stand.”
“I keep hoping that as time passes we’ll regain the ease between us, but part of me knows it’s futile. There’s no going back.”
“I mourn my old life here…. I knew where I fit in, I knew what my place was[.]”
“I hunt. He bakes. Haymitch drinks. We have our own ways to stay busy[.]”
Chapter 2
“Any act of rebellion was purely coincidental.”
“It must be very fragile, if a handful of berries can bring it down.”
Chapter 3
“I didn’t even know I was crushing it, but I guess I had to hold on to something while my world veered out of control.”
“Everyone I love doomed.”
“I think about how there was no going back after I cook over caring for the family when I was eleven.”
“Because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with it.”
“The last thing he needs is an incentive.”
“It’s a place I’ve never really wanted to share with anyone, though, a place that belonged only to my father and me. … Over the course of the last five years, the lake’s remarkably unchanged and I’m almost unrecognizable.”
“Who knows who I would be or what I would talk about if I’d been raised in the Capitol?”
“Who else will I fail to save from the Capitol’s vengeance?”
“His face sobers, grows older in the glow of the red taillights. “Then you can’t fail.””
Chapter 4
“But it happens too frequently to just be about odds.”
“He could have had his choice of any woman in the district. And he chose solitude. Not solitude… solitary confinement.”
“As far as I can tell, they never get up before noon unless there’s some sort of national emergency.”
“Do they really have no idea how freakish they look to the rest of us?”
“I can smell an excellent meal being prepared, but it doesn’t block out the odors of mildew and rot.”
“Everything beautiful brings her to mind.”
Chapter 5
“”Nothing happened, Effie. An old truck backfired,” says Peeta evenly.”
“The whole thing is so improbable. And it would be one thing if I had planned to stir things up, but given the circumstances… how on earth did I cause so much trouble?”
“The prep team seems oblivious to the events of the day.”
“[Y]ou can feel something in the air, the rolling boil of a pot about to run over.”
“And I know that there’s nothing I could ever do to change this.”
“I learned that his name was Marvel. How did I never know that? I suppose before the Games I didn’t pay attention, and afterward I didn’t want to know.”
Chapter 6
“I see the end of hope, the beginning of the destruction of everything I hold dear in the world… The main thing I feel is a sense of relief.”
“That if desperate times call for desperate measures, then I am free to act as desperately as I wish.”
“”If that’s what it takes,” says the president with conspiratorial good humor. Oh, the fun we two have together.”
“My bird has been replicated on belt buckles, embroidered into silk lapels, even tattooed in intimate places. Everyone wants to wear the winner’s token.”
“I have zero interest in the Capitol people. They are only distractions from the food.”
“[E]lse how would you have any fun at a feast?”
“”[Y]ou’ll be pleased to know I’ve never recovered,” says Plutarch.”
“It starts at midnight.”
“This is what President Snow calls an uprising.”
Chapter 7
“A mockingjay is a creature the Capitol never intended to exist… They hadn’t anticipated its will to live.”
“”I do think you’re mad and I’ll still go with you,” he says. He means it.”
Chapter 8
“Most of the square has emptied, fear getting the better of compassion.”
“… but what is the worst pain? To me, it’s always the pain that is present.”
“So it’s starting again?” she says. “Like before?”
“No wonder I won the Games. No decent person ever does.”
“At some point, you have to stop running and turn around and face whoever wants you dead. The hard thing is finding the courage to do it.”
“He just manages a smile before the drugs pull him back under.”
Chapter 9
“I welcome the blizzard, with its ferocious winds and deep, drifting snow… This blizzard is a gift.”
“The Capitol has no end of creative ways to kill people. I imagine these things and I’m terrified, but let’s face it: They’ve been lurking in the back of my brain, anyway.”
“But deciding not to run away is a crucial first step.”
“”What did you do in warm months?” I ask. “Tried to keep the flies away.””
“I really can’t think about kissing when I’ve got a rebellion to incite.”
“An uprising requires breaking the law, thwarting authority.”
“The number of kids signing up for tesserae soars, but they often don’t receive their grain.”
“The eargerly awaited food promised for Parcel Day arrives spoiled and defiled by rodents.”
“I cover my tracks until the trees conceal them for me.”
Top 3 Quotes from Part 1
The sun persists in rising, so I make myself stand.
Chapter 1
A mockingjay is a creature the Capitol never intended to exist… They hadn’t anticipated its will to live.
Chapter 7
This is what President Snow calls an uprising.
Chapter 6
Part 2: The Quell
Chapter 10
“Her skin is so pale as to be translucent and I can see the fire glow through her flesh.”
Chapter 11
“His usual easy expression is replaced by something more intense and removed that suggest and entire world locked away inside him.”
“Spring would be a good time for an uprising, I think. Everyone feels less vulnerable once winter passes.”
“Having voted, and probably be on the winner, people are very interested in my wedding gown.”
Chapter 12
“Spring would be a good time for an uprising, I think. Everyone feels less vulnerable once winter passes.”
“Having voted, and probably be on the winner, people are very interested in my wedding gown.”
Chapter 13
“But at the moment, I excuse myself from thinking about even those I love most. I think only of me. And what lies ahead.”
“They, or should I say we, are the very embodiment of hope where there is no hope. And now twenty-three of us will be killed to show how even that hope was an illusion.”
“But inside me, the liquor feels like fire and I like it.”
“”You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, you know,” Haymitch says.”
“Something flickers across his bloodshot eyes. Pain.”
“And I’m left staring out the window, … with all my good-byes still hanging on my lips.”
Chapter 14
“Because I can’t handle the nightmares. Not without you.“
Chapter 15
“The idea of being strong for someone else having never entered their heads, I find myself in the position of having to console them.”
“[I]t’s something of a revelation that those in the Capitol feel anything at all about us.”
“She is as deadly as fire itself.”
“”[W]ell, if we see something sweet, we better grab it quick.””
“Oh, I haven’t dealt in anything as common as money for years.”
“Everybody seems to know my secrets before I know them myself.”
“[W]e are not just beautiful, we are dark and powerful. We are unforgiving.”
Chapter 16
“In the tight, desperate clench of our fingers are all the words we will never be able to say.”
“In Capitol terms, I’m guessing this counts as a true tragedy.”
“And the more I come to know these people, the worse it is. Because, on the whole, I don’t hate them. And some I like. And a lot of them are so damaged that my natural instinct would be to protect them.”
“Do you have any idea how much I hate you? I think. You, who have given your talents to the Games?“
Chapter 17
“The look of shock is unanimous.”
“I just wanted to hold them accountable, if only for a moment.”
“If I can make it clear that I’m still defying the Capitol right up to the end, the Capitol will have killed me… but not my spirit. What a better way to give hope to the rebels?”
“I can hear the smile in his voice. “Then you’ll allow it?” “I’ll allow it,” I say.”
“My foolish, shallow, affectionate pets…”
“However much President Snow may hate me, the Capitol audience is mine.”
“And we have our own little ceremony, where they make their first fire, toast a bit of bread, and share it.”
“By the time I’m introduced, the audience is an absolute wreck. People have been weeping and collapsing and even calling for change.”
“Because Cinna has turned me into a mockingjay.”
Chapter 18
“The audience can’t absorb the news right away. It has to strike them and sink in and be confirmed by other voices.”
“How real are the tears?”
“”You just remember who the enemy is””
“Fantastic and reckless.”
“”Remember, girl on fire,” he says, “I’m still betting on you.””
Top 3 Quotes from Part 2
However much President Snow may hate me, the Capitol audience is mine.
Chapter 17
You just remember who the enemy is.
Chapter 18
“Remember, girl on fire,” he says, “I’m still betting on you.”
Chapter 18
Part 3: The Enemy
Chapter 19
“And it has unhinged me.”
“Finnick suddenly grins, “Lucky thing we’re allies. Right?””
“How long did I take to turn deadly? … The people in this arena weren’t crowned for their compassion.”
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
“It would be so simple, to run full out[.]”
“But this is not a thing you can fight, only evade.”
“On the fog comes, silent and steady and flat, except for the grasping tendrils.”
“We all crawl, since walking now seems as remarkable a feat as flying.”
Chapter 22
“Everything about her speaks of waste — her body, her life, the vacant look in her eyes.”
“I haven’t figured out a rainbow yet. They come so quickly and leave so soon. I never have enough time to capture them.”
“[E]ven Finnick’s beauty has been marred by this night.”
Chapter 23
“”Oh, she’s more than smart,” says Beetee. “She’s intuitive.””
“A silent canary, a spark, and nothing more.”
“The silence. Our canary has stopped singing.”
Chapter 24
“Jabberjays mimic what they hear. Where did they get those screams[?]”
“”We’re the ones in the Games. Not them.” “You really believe that?” I say. “I really do,” says Peeta.”
“So that’s who Finnick loves, … a poor, mad girl back home.“
“I realize only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me.”
Chapter 25
“Plus the clock to contend with.”
“Thirty-two rolls, then. So we each take five, leaving seven, which will never divide equally. It’s bread for only one.”
Chapter 26
“I shake him in the way you should never shake an injured person, but I don’t know what else to do.”
Chapter 27
“Used without consent, without knowledge. At least in the Hunger Games, I knew I was being played with.”
“I am the mocking jay.”
Top 3 Quotes from Part 3
A silent canary, a spark, and nothing more.
Chapter 22
At least in the Hunger Games, I knew I was being played with.
Chapter 27
Our canary has stopped singing.
Chapter 22
I am the mocking jay.
Chapter 27