“To say you have no choice is to release yourself from responsibility and that’s not how a person with integrity acts.”
“To allow someone, anyone, to suffer is the greatest sin there is.”
“What a sad thing men are. Can’t do nothing good without being so weak we have to mess it up. Can’t build something up without tearing it down. It ain’t the Spackle that drove us to the end. It was ourselves.”
“Roads is never the fastest way to get nowhere,” the woman says. “Don’t ye know that?”
“History ain’t so important when yer just trying to survive,” I say, spitting it out under my breath. “That’s actually when it’s most important,” Hildy says,”
“But then there’s her eyes and they look at you and don’t brook no arguments, don’t look like they ever doubt themselves, even when they should. Maybe they’re the eyes of a giant after all.”
“But guessing a thing ain’t knowing a thing.”
“I think how hope may be the thing that pulls you forward, may be the thing that keeps you going, but that it’s dangerous, too, that it’s painful and risky, that it’s making a dare to the world and when has the world ever let us win a dare?”
“But there’s always hope,” Ben says. “You always have to hope.”
“War is a monster,” he says, almost to himself. “War is the devil. It starts and it consumes and it grows and grows and grows.” He’s looking at me now. “And otherwise normal men become monsters, too.”
“You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.”
“Then they set out along the blacktop in the gunmetal light, shuffling through the ash, each the other's world entire.”
“We can destroy what we have written, but we cannot unwrite it.”
“Come on, Hathaway," he said, taking my arm. "You can be my partner. Let’s see what you’ve been doing all this time."
An hour later, he had his answer.
"Not practicing, huh?"
"Ow,” I groaned, momentarily incapable of normal speech.
He extended a hand and helped me up from the mat he’d knocked me down on—about fifty times.
"I hate you,” I told him, rubbing a spot on my thigh that was going to have a wicked bruise tomorrow.
"You’d hate me more if I held back."
"Yeah, that’s true," I agreed, staggering along as the class put the equipment back.
"You actually did okay."
"What? I just had my ass handed to me."
"Well, of course you did. It’s been two years. But hey, you’re still walking. That’s something." He grinned mockingly.
"Did I mention I hate you?”
He flashed me another smile, which quickly faded to something more serious. "Don’t take this the wrong way…I mean, you really are a scrapper, but there’s no way you’ll be able to take your trials in the spring—"
"They’re making me take extra practice sessions," I explained. Not that it mattered. I planned on getting Lissa and me out of here before those practices really became an issue.
"Extra sessions with who?"
"That tall guy. Dimitri."
Mason stopped walking and stared at me. "You’re putting in extra time with Belikov?"
"Yeah, so what?"
"So the man is a god."
"Exaggerate much?" I asked.
"No, I’m serious. I mean, he’s all quiet and antisocial usually but when he fights...wow. If you think you’re hurting now, you’re going to be dead when he’s done with you."
Great. Something else to improve my day.”
“If the Lord hasn't got a boyfriend lined up for me to marry, that's his business.”
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