Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)

by Suzanne Collins

And it takes too much energy to stay angry with someone who cries so much.

“Fire is catching!” I am shouting now, determined that he will not miss a word. “And if we burn, you burn with us!”

It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.”

“The Hanging Tree” starts running through my head. The one where the man wants his lover dead rather than have her face the evil that awaits her in the world.

“You’re still trying to protect me. Real or not real,” he whispers. “Real,” I answer. It seems to require more explanation. “Because that’s what you and I do. Protect each other.”

“But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We’re fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.

That what I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.