Mel Rodriguez > Mel's Quotes

“I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now and live in it forever.”
― Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

“I don't want you forgetting how different our circumstaces are. If you die, and I live, there's no life for me at all back in District Twelve. You're my whole life." Peeta says. "I would never be happy again. It's different for you. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard. But there are other people who'd make your life worth living."

"No one really needs me," he says, and there's no selfpity in his voice. It's true his family doesn't need him. They will mourn him, as will a handfull of friends. But they will get on.... I realise only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me.

"I do," I say. "I need you.”
― Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

“I pull an arrow, whip the notch into place, and am about to let it fly when I'm stopped by the sight of Finnick kissing Peeta. And it's so bizarre, even for Finnick.”
― Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

“What's going on down there, Katniss? Have they all joined hands? Taken a vow of nonviolence? Tossed the weapons in the sea in defiance of the Capitol?' Finnick asks.

No,' I say.

No,' Finnick repeats. 'Because whatever happened in the past is in the past. And no one in this arena was a victor by chance.' He eyes Peeta for a moment. 'Except maybe Peeta.”
― Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

“By late afternoon I lie with my head in Peeta’s lap making a crown of flowers while he fiddles with my hair claiming he is practicing knots. After awhile his hands go still.
“What?” I ask.
“I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever,” he says.
Usually this sort of comment, the kind that hints his undying love for me, makes me feel guilty and awful. But I’m so relaxed and beyond worrying about a future I’ll never have, I just let the word slip out.
“Okay,” I say.
I can hear the smile in his voice. “Then you’ll allow it?”
“I’ll allow it.”
― Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

“They can pump whatever they want into my arm but it takes more than that to keep a person going once she's lost the will to live.”
― Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

“When Peeta holds out his arms, I walk straight into them. It's the first time since they announced the Quarter Quell that he's offered me any sort of affection. He's been more like a very demanding trainer, always pushing, always insisting Haymitch and I run faster, eat more, know our enemy better. Lovers? Forget about that. He abandoned any pretense of even being my friend. I wrap my arms tightly around his neck before he can order me to do push-ups or something. Instead he pulls me in close and buries his face in my hair. Warmth radiates from the spot where his lips just touch my neck, slowly spreading through the rest of me. It feels so good, so impossibly good, that I know I will not be the first to let go.
And why should I?”
― Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

“I like to watch his hands as he works, making a blank page bloom with strokes of ink, adding touches of color to our previously black and yellowish book. His face takes on a special look when he concentrates. His usual easy expression is replaced by something more intense and removed that suggests an entire world locked away inside him. I've seen flashes of this before: in the arena, or when he speaks to a crowd, or that time he shoved the Peacekeepers' guns away from me in District 11. I don't know quite what to make of it. I also become a little fixated on his eyelashes, which ordinarily you don't notice much because they're so blond. But up close, in the sunlight slanting in from the window, they're a light golden color and so long I don't see how they keep from getting all tangled up when he blinks.”
― Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

“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 Capitol's 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.”
― Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

“Peeta would lose it if he knew I was thinking any of this, so I only say, “So what should we do with our last few days?”
“I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you,” Peeta replies.
“Come on, then,” I say, pulling him into my room.”
― Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

“Water flows from high places to low places. That is the nature of gravity. Emotions also seem to act according to gravity. When in the presence of someone with whom you have a bond, and to whom you have entrusted your feelings, it is hard to lie and get away with it. The truth just wants to come flowing out. This is especially the case when you are trying to hide your sadness or vulnerability. It is much easier to conceal sadness from a stranger, or from someone you don’t trust.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“People don’t see things and hear things as objectively as they might think. The visual and auditory information that enters the mind is distorted by experiences, thoughts, circumstances, wild fancies, prejudices, preferences, knowledge, awareness, and countless other workings of the mind.”
― Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Before the Coffee Gets Cold

“I don't want to be married just to be married. I can't think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can't talk to, or worse, someone I can't be silent with.”
― Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“Men are more interesting in books than they are in real life.”
― Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“Life goes on." What nonsense, I thought, of course it doesn't. It's death that goes on.”
― Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“That’s what I told myself – Well, you’re still alive. I think all of us said the same each morning when we woke up – Well, I’m still alive. But the truth is, we weren’t. What we were – it wasn’t dead, but it wasn’t alive either.”
― Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“Have you ever wondered what a human life is worth? That morning, my brother's was worth a pocket watch.”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“Was it harder to die, or harder to be the one who survived?”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“November 20. Andrius's birthday. I had counted the days carefully. I wished him a happy birthday when I woke and thought about him while hauling logs during the day. At night, I sat by the light of the stove, reading Dombey and Son. Krasivaya. I still hadn't found the word. Maybe I'd find it if I jumped ahead. I flipped through some of the pages. A marking caught my eye. I leafed backward. Something was written in pencil in the margin of 278.
Hello, Lina. You've gotten to page 278. That's pretty good!
I gasped, then pretened I was engrossed in the book. I looked at Andrius's handwritting. I ran my finger over this elongated letters in my name. Were there more? I knew I should read onward. I couldn't wait. I turned though the pages carefully, scanning the margins.
Page 300:
Are you really on page 300 or are you skipping ahead now?
I had to stifle my laughter.
Page 322:
Dombey and Son is boring. Admit it.
Page 364:
I'm thinking of you.
Page 412:
Are you maybe thinking of me?
I closed my eyes.
Yes, I'm thinking of you. Happy birthday, Andrius.”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“What was life asking of me? How could I respond when I didn't know the question?”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“How did I get here How did I end up in the arms of a boy I barely knew but knew I didn't want to lose I wondered what I would have thought of Andrius in Lithuania. Would I have liked him Would he have liked me”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“Good men are often more practical than pretty.”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“But all of the survivors had one thing in common, and that was love. They survived through love. Whether love of friend, love of country, love of God, or even love of enemy—love reveals to us the truly miraculous nature of the human spirit.”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“Better that he gets used to it,' he said.
Used to what, the feeling of uncontrolled anger? Or a sadness so deep, like your very core has been hollowed out and fed back to you from a dirty bucket?”
― Ruta Sepetys, Between Shades of Gray

“I can't erase the darkness for you, but I can be the one to hold the light when you're ready to come home.”
― Nicole Deese, The Words We Lost

“It was hers to make, mine to support, and God’s to control.”
― Nicole Deese, The Words We Lost

“If you waste your heart on hate, you’ll miss the good life has to give.”
― Nicole Deese, The Words We Lost

“A reminder that even though there are still things to talk and sing and laugh about in this life, there are also things to miss and lament and grieve, too. Both are welcome and both are necessary.”
― Nicole Deese, The Words We Lost

“He says the ocean is the only place big enough to hold all the sorrow in our world.”
― Nicole Deese, The Words We Lost

“Because we’ve both learned the hard way that falling in love is far simpler than staying in love.”
― Nicole Deese, The Words We Lost