Quotes from Suzanne Collins

He slumps back in his chair, distraught.

Ask yourself, do you really trust the people you're working with? Do you really know hat's going on? And if you don't… find out." - Peeta

Let's each have three, and whoever is still alive at breakfast can take a vote on the rest," says Johanna. I don't know why this makes me laugh a little. I guess because it's true. When I do, Johanna gives me a look that's almost approving. No, not approving. But maybe slightly pleased.

He's a Capitol boy and clearly I got the cake with the cream, 'cause nobody else's mentor even bothered to show up to welcome them.

I'm light-headed with giddiness. What will I say? Oh, who cares what I say? Peeta will be ecstatic no matter what I do. He'll probably be kissing me anyway. I wonder if it will feel like those last kisses on the beach in the arena, the ones I haven't dared let myself consider until this moment.

As we ride the elevator, Gale finally says, "You're still angry." "And you're still not sorry," I reply. "I still stand by what I said. Do you want me to lie about it?" he asks. "No, I want you to rethink it and come up with the right opinion," I tell him. But this just makes him laugh.

District Twelve. Where you can starve to death in

Katniss will choose whoever she thinks she can't live without.

As we ride the elevator, Gale finally says, "You're still angry." "And you're still not sorry," I reply. "I still stand by what I said. Do you want me to lie about it?" he asks. "No, I want you to rethink it and come up with the right opinion," I tell him.

I clench his hands to the point of pain. "Stay with me." His pupils contract to pinpoints, dilate again rapidly, and then return to something resembling normalcy. "Always," he murmurs.

That I shouldn't have trusted him," says Peeta.

But one day I'l have to explain about my nightmares. Why they came. Why they won't ever really go away. I'll tell them how I survive it. I'll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because I'm afraid it could be taken away. That's when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I've seen someone do. It's like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than twenty years. But there are much worse games to play.

I wrap my arms around his neck, feel his arms hesitate before they embrace me. Not as steady as they once were, but still warm and strong. A thousand moments surge through me. All the times these arms were my only refuge from the world. Perhaps not fully appreciated then, but so sweet in my memory, and now gone forever. "All right, then." I release him. "It's time," says Tigris.

Gale gave me a sense of security I'd lacked since my father's death. His companionship replaced the long solitary hours in the woods. I became a much better hunter when I didn't have to look over my shoulder constantly, when someone was watching my back. But he turned into so much more than a hunting partner.

The Games are still on. We have left the arena, but since Peeta and I weren't killed, his last wish to preserve my life still stands.

The final day of training ends with our private sessions. We each get fifteen minutes before the Gamemakers to amaze them with our skills, but I don't know what any of us might have to show them. There's a lot of kidding about it at lunch. What we might do. Sing, dance, strip, tell jokes. Mags, who I can understand a little better now, decides she's just going to take a nap.

I'm disappointed that mine was not the first face he saw when he woke, but he sees it now. His features register disbelief and something more intense that I can't quite place. Desire? Desperation?

just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you," Peeta replies.

It's a saying from thousands of years ago, written in a language called Latin about a place called Rome," he explains. "Panem et Circenses translates into 'Bread and Circuses.' The writer was saying that in return for full bellies and entertainment, his people had given up their political responsibilities and therefore their power." I

Maybe if I had thanked him at some point, I'd be feeling less conflicted now. I thought about it a couple of times, but the opportunity never seemed to present itself. And now it never will. Because we're going to be thrown into an arena to fight to the death. Exactly how am I supposed to work in a thank-you in there? Somehow it just won't seem sincere if I'm trying to slit his throat.

Finally, Haymitch is being forced into sobriety, with no secret stashes or home-brewed concoctions to ease his transition. They've got him in seclusion until he's dried out,

No mutt is good. All are meant to damage you. Some take your life, like the monkeys. Others your reason, like the tracker jackers. However, the true atrocities, the most frightening, incorporate a perverse psychological twist designed to terrify the victim. The sight of the wolf mutts with the dead tributes' eyes. The sound of the jabberjays replicating Prim's tortured screams. The smell of Snow's

And again and again when I held out those berries that meant different things to different people. Love for Peeta. Refusal to give in under impossible odds. Defiance of the Capitol's inhumanity. Haymitch

I am the mockingjay.