“And I saw that all my life I had known that this was going to happen, and that I'd been afraid for a long time, I'd been afraid for a long time. There's fear, of course, with everybody. But now it ...”

“It was like letting go and falling back into water and seeing yourself grinning up through the water, your face like a mask, and seeing the bubbles coming up as if you were trying to speak from und...”

“When he talked his eyes went away from mine and then he forced himself to look straight at me and he began to explain and I knew that he felt very strange with me and that he hated me, and it was f...”

“But in the daytime it was all right. And when you'd had a drink you knew it was the best way to live in the world because anything might happen. I don't know how people live when they know exactly ...”

“It's funny, he said, have you ever thought that a girl's clothes cost more than the girl inside them?”

“Don't cry over someone who wouldn't cry over you.”

“Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: youre falling to the floor crying ...”

“Weeping is not the same thing as crying. It takes your whole body to weep, and when it's over, you feel like you don't have any bones left to hold you up.”

“...I gave you painted air - tears I couldn't weep - truths I couldn't speak - all the words that caught in my throat...”

“He wept, and it felt as if the tears were cleansing him, as if his body needed to empty itself.”

“Prim, let go," I say harshly, because this is upsetting me and I don't want to cry. When they televise the replay of the reapings tonight, everyone will make note of my tears, and I'll be marked as...”