Suzanne Collins Quotes (341 Quotes)

It's weird, how much he's noticed me... And apparently, I have not been as oblivious to him as I imagined, either.

No, when the time comes, I'm sure I'll kill just like everybody else. I can't go down without a fight. Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to…to show the Capitol they don't own me.

So we both strip off our boots and socks and, while there's some improvement, I could swear he's making an effort to snap every branch we encounter

The rules of the Hunger Games are simple. In punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one girl and one boy, called tributes, to participate. The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland. Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins.

Yes, it's your fault I'm alive.

But there was only one kiss that made me feel something stir deep inside. Only one that made me want more. But my head wound started bleeding and he made me lie down.

I go back to my room and lie under the covers, trying not to think of Gale and thinking of nothing else.

In really bad times, the hungriest would gather at his door at nightfall, vying for the chance to earn a few coins to feed their families by selling their bodies. Had I been older when my father died, I might have been among them. Instead I learned to hunt.

Peeta smiles and douses Haymitch's knife in white liquor from a bottle on the floor. He wipes the blade clean on his shirt tail and slices the bread. Peeta keeps all of us in fresh baked goods. I hunt. He bakes. Haymitch drinks. We have our own ways to stay busy, to keep thought of our time as contestants in the Hunger Games at bay.

They can't hurt me. I'm not like the rest of you. There's no one left I love.

And suddenly, it's as if there's no one in the world but these two, crashing through space to reach each other. They collide, enfold, lose their balance, and slam against a wall, where they stay. Clinging into one being. Indivisible.

Don't let him take you from me.

I sit on the rock where Cressida filmed us, but it's too wide without his body beside me. Several times I close my eyes and count to ten, thinking that when I open them, he will have materialized without a sound as he so often did. I have to remind myself that Gale's in 2 with a fancy job, probably kissing another pair of lips.

Instead, I watch myself get shot on television.

My sleep wasn't peaceful, though. I have the sense of emerging from a world of dark, haunted places where I traveled alone.

Still, I hate them. But, of course, I hate almost everybody now. Myself more than anyone.

Time and tragedy have forced her to grow too quickly, at least for my taste, into a young woman who stitches bleeding wounds and knows our mother can hear only so much.

And may the odds be ever in your favour

Destroying things is much easier than making them.

I don't know what the explosion did, but it damaged something deep and irreparable. Never mind. If I get home, I'll be so stinking rich, I'll be able to pay someone to do my hearing.

If you won't talk about yourself, at least compliment the audience. Just keep turning it back around, all right. Gush.

Just because people starve in a book, doesn't mean that we will starve in the future....

No. Now, shut up and eat your pears.

So what I'd really like is to try and conceal him somewhere safe, then go hunt, and come back and collect him. But I have a feeling his ego isn't going to go for that suggestion.

The walls of this elevator are made of crystal so that you can watch the people on the ground floor shrink to ants as you shoot up into the air. It's exhilarating and I'm tempted to ask Effie Trinket if we can ride it again, but somehow that seems childish.

You can tell by the way the girls whisper about him when he walks by in school that they want him. It makes me jealous but not for the reason people would think. Good hunting partners are hard to find.

Charred bits of black silk swirl into the air, and pearls clatter to the stage… I'm in a dress of the exact design of my wedding dress, only it's the color of coal and made of tiny feathers. Wonderingly, I lift my long, flowing sleeves into the air, and that's when I see myself on the television screen. Clothed in black except for the white patches on my sleeves. Or should I say my wings. Because Cinna had turned me into a mockingjay.

I guess this is a bad time to mention I hung a dummy and painted Seneca Crane's name on it...

In that one slight motion, I see the end of hope, beginning of destruction of everything I hold dear in the world. I cant guess what form my punishment will take, how wide the net will be cast, but when it is finished there most likely be nothing left.So you would think that at this moment, I would be in utter despair.

Remembering from last year how Haymitch's gifts are often timed to send a message, I make a note to myself. Be friends with Finnick. You'll get food.

They erase my face with a layer of pale makeup and draw my features back out.

Anyway, even if she's sugarcoating my good points, I appreciate it. Frankly, I could use a little sugarcoating.

Eyes on the forest, not on the trees.

I squeeze my eyes shut and try to reach for him across the hundreds and hundreds of miles, to send my thoughts into his mind, to let him know he is not alone. But he is. And I can't help him.

It's like a game. Repetitive. but there are much worse games to play.

My voice, at first rough and breaking on the high notes, warms up into something splendid. A voice that would make the mockingjays fall silent and then tumble over themselves to join in.

Technically, I am unarmed. But no one should ever underestimate the harm that fingernails can do. Especially if the target is unprepared.

To set a precedent, I guess. So that if in the future she ever fell from grace, it would be understood that presidents - even the most despicable - get special treatment.

And once we reach the city, my stylist will dictate my look for the opening ceremonies tonight anyway. I just hope I get one who doesn't think nudity is the last word in fashion.

Don't. Don't let's pretend when there's no one around.

I have been keeping track of the boy with the bread.

I'll never know what it was he wanted me to remember.

Just remember, stealing's punishable by death

Not daring to flee since my general location has just been broadcast to any killer who cares. I mean, I know it's cold out here and not everybody has a sleeping bag.

Somehow it always comes back to coal at school.

The woods always look different at night...as if the daytime trees and flowers and stones had gone to bed and sent slightly more ominous versions of themselves to take their places.

You come here to finish me off, sweetheart?

Come on and eat with him. I promise, I won't let him kiss you again.

I had to do that. At least once.

Isn't it strange that I know you'd risk your life to save mine... but I don't know what your favorite color is?