Reset, readjust, restart, refocus.As many times as you need to.
Just don't quit!
I never feared about my skills because I put in the work. Work ethic eliminates fear.
So if you put forth the work, what are you fearing? You know what you're capable of doing and what you're not.
-- Michael Jordan
MermaidDiagram Comment.
We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another.
Knowledge is power. Power to do evil...or power to do good. Power itself is not evil. So knowledge itself is not evil.
Then I realize what it is. It's him. Something about him makes me feel like I am about to fall. Or turn to liquid. Or burst into flames.
I fell in love with him. But I don't just stay with him by default as if there's no one else available to me. I stay with him because I choose to, every day that I wake up, every day that we fight or lie to each other or disappoint each other. I choose him over and over again, and he chooses me.
Can you be a girl for a few seconds?""I'm always a girl" I frown."You know what I mean. Like a silly, annoying girl"I twirl my hair around my finger. "Kay.
Moths," repeats Will. "You're afraid of moths?" "Not just a cloud of moths," she says, "like...a swarm of them. Everywhere. All those wings and legs and..." She shudders and shakes her head."Terrifying," Will says with mock seriousness. "That's my girl. Tough as cotton balls.""Oh, Shut up.
May the peace of God be with you,” she says, her voice low, “even in the midst of trouble.”“Why would it?” I say softly, so no one else can hear. “After all I’ve done...”“It isn’t about you,” she says. “It is a gift. You cannot earn it, or it ceases to be a gift.
You don’t believe things because they make your life better, you believe them because they’re true.
She has been to the compound before. She remembered this hallway. She knows about the initiation process. My mother was Dauntless.
It reminds me that no embrace will ever feel the same again, because no one will ever be like her again, because she's gone. She's gone, and crying feels so useless, so stupid, but it's all I can do.
Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We can’t escape that damage. But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other
It's strange how time can make a place shrink, make its strangeness ordinary.
Valuing knowledge above all else results in a lust for power, and that leads men into dark and empty places.
I wonder if fears ever really go away, or if they just lose their power over us.
One ChoiceOne Choice, decided your friends.One Choice, defines your beliefs.One Choice, determines your loyalties - Forever.ONCE CHOICE CAN TRANSFORM YOU
No matter how long you train someone to be brave, you never know if they are or not until something real happens.
Four flips the gun in this hand, presses the barrel to Peter's forehead, and clicks a bullet into place. Peter freezes with his lips parted, the yawn dead in his mouth. "Wake. Up," Four snaps. "You are holding a loaded gun, you idiot. Act like it.
Dead people can be our heroes because they cant disappoint us later; they only improve over time, as we forget more and more about them.
I keep finding myself stifled by the company of others and then crippled by loneliness when I leave them. I am terrified and I don't even know of what, because I have lost everything already.
But when I do feel all the strength go out of me, and I fall to my knees beside the table and I think I cry, then, or at least I want to, and everything inside me screams for just one more kiss, one more word, one more glance, one more.
I belong to the people I love, and they belong to me--they, and the love and loyaty I give them, form my identity far more than any word or group ever could.
Yeah, sometimes life really sucks," she says. "But you know what I'm holding on for?"I raise my eyebrows.She raises hers, too, mimicking me."The moments that don't suck," she says. "The trick is to notice them when they come around.
The person you became with her is worth being.
We've all started to put down the virtues of the other factions in the process of bolstering our own. I don't want to do that. I want to be brave, and selfless, and smart, and kind, and honest." He clears his throat. "I continually struggle with kindness.
Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up. I've seen it. It's fascinating." He releases me but doesn't pull away, his hand grazing my jaw, my neck. "Sometimes I just...want to see it again. Want to see you awake.
We could visit him," suggests Will. "But what would we say? 'I didn't know you that well, but I'm sorry you got stabbed in the eye'?
What is it with you today?” says Christina on the way to breakfast. Her eyes are stillswollen from sleep and her tangled hair forms a fuzzy halo around her face.“Oh, you know,” I say. “Sun shining. Birds chirping.”She raises an eyebrow at me, as if reminding me that we are in an undergroundtunnel.
Leaving us with Eric is like hiring a babysitter who spends his time sharpening knives.
I didn't know that idiocy caused people to just start spontaneously bleeding from the nose.
She believes that Tobias belongs to her now. She doesn't know the truth, that he belongs to himself.
If they told us what to believe, and we didn't come to it on our own, is it still true?
I love you" I say."I love you, too" he says. "I'll see you soon.
I'll be your family now," he says. "I love you," I say. (....)He stares at me. I wait with my hands clutching his arms for stability as he considers his response. He frowns at me. "Say it again.""Tobias," I say, "I love you.
I think you're still the only person sharp enough to sharpen someone like me.
I regret..." Tobias tilts his head, and sighs. "I regret my choice.""What Choice?""Dauntless," he says. "I was born Abnegation. I was planning on leaving Dauntless, and becoming factionless. But I met her, and... I felt like maybe I could make something more of my decision."Her.
We are not people who touch each other carelessly; every point of contact between us feels important, a rush of energy and relief.
You want him to walk?" Caleb demands. "Are you insane?""Did I shoot him in the leg?" I say. "No. He walks. Where do we go, Peter?
Lynn, she saved half our faction from this stuff," says Marlene, tapping the bandage on her arm from where the Dauntless traitors shot her. "Well, half of half of our faction.""In some circles they call that a quarter, Mar," Lynn says.
That is death - shifting from "is" to "was.
Eric called Al's suicide brave, and he was wrong. My mother's death was brave. I remember how calm she was, how determined. It isn't just brave that she died for me; it is brave that she did it without announcing it, without hesitation, and without appearing to consider another option.
Are you asking me to undress, Tris?'A nervous laugh gurgles from my throat. 'Only ... partially
Be brave
You know her well. People are harder to sum up when you know them well.
Knowledge Strategy Execution
Motivation is a byproduct of action, not the catalyst for it.
Control your thoughts or your thoughts will control you.
Today is a new day. Stop living in the past.
Focus on the step in front of you, not the whole staircase.
You attract what you are, not what you want. If you want great, then be great.
Your goals should scare you a little and excite you a lot.