I'm a great believer in poetry out of the classroom, in public places, on subways, trains, on cocktail napkins. I'd rather have my poems on the subway than around the seminar table at an MFA program.
Billy Collins
Related I'm pretty much all for poetry in public places - poetry on buses, poetry on subways, on billboa... BILLY COLLINS I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck. EMMA GOLDMAN I'd rather make all my secrets public than have an image based on gossip. I'd rather put it ... EVE I was trying to pay the bills with poems, and it was easy to memorize my poems, because I'd be r... OMARI HARDWICK I'm in the middle of the road, it seems vague of unclear way, of where I'm going but no matter what ... HLONIM They stand uncertainly underneath immense skies, and everything about them is drowned. JACK KEROUAC I heard the Denver and Rio Grande locomotives howling off in to the mountains. I wanted to pursue my... JACK KEROUAC I read my copy of On the Road and dug the scenery whizzing past. On the Road is a semi-autobiographi... CORY DOCTOROW I'm not lonely, and I think that has a lot to do with what's on my bedside table rather than... MICHELLE WILLIAMS Me, I'd prefer to have a good reputation rather than getting press for being scandalous, getting... SOPHIA BUSH I write poetry on my iPhone. I've got about 100 poems on there. AARON NEVILLE The survey findings are sobering, even if we adjust for the fact that public concerns may have been ... TOM STINSON The fact is I'm an opportunist. I'll take materials around me, materials on my table, and wo... FRANK GEHRY But the dust! And the clutter! My housewifely and scholarly instincts were equally offended. ELIZABETH PETERS But when have I ever needed saving? "Are you a Wendy?" I whisper to myself, scanning the low ro... TRACY WARD I'm not a believer that you have to write every day. If I felt industrious, I'd spend ten ho... JULIA GLASS I'd literally rather hang out at the T.G.I. Friday's in New Jersey than tool around at a pla... PATRICK CARNEY I'm not really on a mission to tell anybody anything. I'd rather be figured out. DIANA KRALL I'm not like most designers, who have to set sail on an exotic getaway to get inspired. Most of ... ALEXANDER WANG Oh, I'd never put my elbows on the table. MARY BERRY I'd rather sleep on the bus than in the hotel because I sleep way better on tour buses. SHAWN MENDES I'd rather live on my own than live with a face that looks at me with the wrong eyes. JANE BIRKIN I'm the type who'd be happy not going anywhere as long as I was sure I knew exactly what was... ANDY WARHOL If I go on a diet and work out, I'm always in a bad mood. I'd rather be a little heavier but... SALMA HAYEK For me, the best places to write are on planes, trains and at airports. Not hotel rooms but hotel lo... JO NESBO I'd rather have a hundred thousand or a million people saying I'm nuts and I'm crazy for... CHUCK D I'd rather win two or three, lose one, win two or three more. I'm a great believer in things... WALT ALSTON I have an 'office,' technically. I never use it. I work on a couch in my living room, with m... RAMEZ NAAM Don't sacrifice the present and attempt to achieve the impossible- to completely correct the past...... ASSEGID HABTEWOLD During the morning rush hour on March 20, 1995, the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo placed packages on f... BARTON GELLMAN It's true to say that I'm a budding young actor. But I'd rather get my name out there be... JOSH BOWMAN I'd love to do an action film. I'd love to do a film based on a book series; I love to read ... KATHERINE MCNAMARA I'd rather rot on my own floor than be found by a bunch of bingo players in a nursing home. FLORENCE KING I've never had a study in my life. I'm like Jane Austen - I work on the corner of the dining... A. N. WILSON I miss my friends in public school, but it's kind of a part of something that you have to give u... JACKIE EVANCHO On the contrary, I'm a strong believer in the necessity of imperfection coming into the film. WALTER SALLES To get over the past, you first have to accept that the past is over. No matter how many times you r... MANDY HALE On the good days, my mother would haul out the ukulele and we'd sit around the kitchen table - i... CAROL BURNETT I'd rather break stones on the king's highway than hem a handkerchief. ANNE SULLIVAN Poetry. I read Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Jane Hirschfield. I like to read Billy Collins out... AMY TAN I'm a great believer in the experiential theory of writing. KATE GRENVILLE There is, I am sensible, an age at which every individual of you would choose to stop; and you will ... JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU But thing in the past are like plate that’s shattered to pieces. You can never put it back togethe... HARUKI MURAKAMI The whole town had instantly gone to bed; the only noise now was barking dogs. How could I ever slee... JACK KEROUAC I ate apple pie and ice cream—it was getting better as I got deeper into Iowa, the pie bigger, the... JACK KEROUAC Somewhere along the line, the pearl would be handed to me. JACK KEROUAC I'm a firm believer in utilizing celebrities because they tap into people on an emotional basis. DAYMOND JOHN I say grace. I'm a big believer in grace. I happen to believe in a God that made all the food an... ALTON BROWN My fiance likes drawing on napkins, which I save. I'm always scared I'll get caught taking a... LAKE BELL I'm quite discreet. I think I'd rather focus on my work. So, I only speak when I have someth... DELPHINE ARNAULT I write almost entirely in bed or on a couch with my feet up on the coffee table. I feel most creati... GARY SHTEYNGART I know I'm an actor, but I'm not at all a believer in people watching a lot of TV. I've ... ALEXANDRA PAUL I'd like not to have these great puffy lobes on my ears - I'd like them to taper in. NICHOLAS HASLAM I'd much rather have sat there and just been a fly on the wall, instead of having to smile at pe... JENNIFER SAUNDERS If I scribbled a few words on a cocktail napkin and showed it to my family, they'd proclaim it a... MARISHA PESSL I'm constitutionally incapable of working on planes or trains, and airports are definitely out. DAMON GALGUT I'm a great believer in outlines. TOM WOLFE I don't aspire to have high approval ratings. I aspire, in light of my two predecessors, to be t... PAT QUINN I'm a great believer in the beauty and the power of surprise. MARK GATISS Football is my profession now. I'm getting married in August... It's a new experience for me... DOUG FLUTIE I'm all for poetry catching up with technology, and just as there are iTunes, I think we should ... BILLY COLLINS I'd rather be thought as an international actress rather than a French one. Because I don't ... EVA GREEN It's all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you're properly trained. QUEEN ELIZABETH II Like all best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and... QUEEN ELIZABETH II My husband has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years, and I owe him a debt greater ... QUEEN ELIZABETH II It is easy enough to define what the Commonwealth is not. Indeed this is quite a popular pastime. QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have to be seen to be believed. QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have in sincerity pledged myself to your service, as so many of you are pledged to mine. Throughou... QUEEN ELIZABETH II I hope that tomorrow we can all, wherever we are, join in expressing our grief at Diana's loss, ... QUEEN ELIZABETH II I myself prefer my New Zealand eggs for breakfast. QUEEN ELIZABETH II The British constitution has always been puzzling and always will be. QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have behind me not only the splendid traditions and the annals of more than a thousand years but t... QUEEN ELIZABETH II To what greater inspiration and counsel can we turn than to the imperishable truth to be found in th... QUEEN ELIZABETH II What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since ... QUEEN ELIZABETH II First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good... QUEEN ELIZABETH II I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something e... QUEEN ELIZABETH II To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts an... QUEEN ELIZABETH II Grief is the price we pay for love. QUEEN ELIZABETH II The upward course of a nation's history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its ... QUEEN ELIZABETH II At its heart, engineering is about using science to find creative, practical solutions. It is a nobl... QUEEN ELIZABETH II At Christmas, I am always struck by how the spirit of togetherness lies also at the heart of the Chr... QUEEN ELIZABETH II For many, Christmas is also a time for coming together. But for others, service will come first. QUEEN ELIZABETH II The lessons from the peace process are clear; whatever life throws at us, our individual responses w... QUEEN ELIZABETH II I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your s... QUEEN ELIZABETH II Therefore I am sure that this, my Coronation, is not the symbol of a power and a splendor that are g... QUEEN ELIZABETH II We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the man... QUEEN ELIZABETH II Madam President, speaking here in Dublin Castle it is impossible to ignore the weight of history, as... QUEEN ELIZABETH II These wretched babies don't come until they are ready. QUEEN ELIZABETH II I know of no single formula for success. But over the years I have observed that some attributes of ... QUEEN ELIZABETH II The events that I have attended to mark my Diamond Jubilee have been a humbling experience. It has t... QUEEN ELIZABETH II In remembering the appalling suffering of war on both sides, we recognise how precious is the peace ... QUEEN ELIZABETH II Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters... QUEEN ELIZABETH II No one who knew Diana will ever forget her. Millions of others who never met her, but felt they knew... QUEEN ELIZABETH II I have been aware all the time that my peoples, spread far and wide throughout every continent and o... QUEEN ELIZABETH II I don't know if I have a favorite color. KATE MIDDLETON It's very special having a new little girl. KATE MIDDLETON I'm a big believer in,'If anyone can understand my politics, I've failed.' If you ca... TAYLOR SHERIDAN My mother gave me a push. If I hadn't had her, maybe I wouldn't have had the push. If I hadn... SAM DONALDSON If I weren't doing what I'm doing today... I'd be traveling around the world on the back... DONNA KARAN On 'Van Halen,' I was a young punk, and everything revolved around the fastest kid in town, ... EDDIE VAN HALEN
More Billy Collins
Emily Dickinson never developed. She remained loyal to her persona and to that same little metrical ... BILLY COLLINS I'll listen to anything authentic whether it's bluegrass or gospel or blues. BILLY COLLINS I have a stack of those plastic card hotel room keys that I picked up on this latest book tour. It... BILLY COLLINS One of the ridiculous aspects of being a poet is the huge gulf between how seriously we take ourselv... BILLY COLLINS I think if a poet wanted to lead, he or she would want the message to be unequivocally clear and fre... BILLY COLLINS I know my voice has a limited range of motion; I don't write dramatic monologues and pretend to ... BILLY COLLINS Poetry can do a lot of things to people. I mean it can improve your imagination. It can take you to ... BILLY COLLINS A lot of my poems either have historical sequences or other kinds of chronological grids where I'... BILLY COLLINS I'm not a claustrophobe, but you don't need to be to feel claustrophobic inside an MRI. It... BILLY COLLINS I'm easily frightened, and I've also come to realize that old Catholic guilt or remorse is e... BILLY COLLINS I really have a distaste for poets who announce themselves at 50 yards; you know, here he comes, you... BILLY COLLINS I don't write for an auditorium full of people. I don't write for the microphone; I write fo... BILLY COLLINS Some honor Cummings as the granddaddy of all American innovators in poetry and ascribe to him a dive... BILLY COLLINS Discovering Samuel Beckett in college was a big deal for me. I realized you could be very funny and ... BILLY COLLINS I'm going through life's cycles at an alarmingly fast pace, but my persona has a Peter Pan q... BILLY COLLINS I think more people should be reading it but maybe fewer people should be writing it, ... there's an... BILLY COLLINS ...pleasure, of course, is a slippery word.... Our pleasures ultimately belong to us, not to the ple... BILLY COLLINS I'm sure he was a wild man, BILLY COLLINS In a world where cultures and religions are recklessly facing off, Sholeh Wolpé writ... BILLY COLLINS Listeners are kind of ambushed... if a poem just happens to be said when they're listening to th... BILLY COLLINS I write with a Uni-Ball Onyx Micropoint on nine-by-seven bound notebooks made by a Canadian company ... BILLY COLLINS One of the disadvantages of poetry over popular music is that if you write a pop song, it naturally ... BILLY COLLINS If you write a letter of resignation or something with an agenda, you're simply using a pen to r... BILLY COLLINS I'm trying to write poems that involve beginning at a known place, and ending up at a slightly d... BILLY COLLINS Poetry is my cheap means of transportation. By the end of the poem the reader should be in a differe... BILLY COLLINS Now that I'm older, a real source of interest is the ages of the dead, the number; the day is of... BILLY COLLINS Humor, for me, is really a gate of departure. It's a way of enticing a reader into a poem so tha... BILLY COLLINS I'm pretty much all for poetry in public places - poetry on buses, poetry on subways, on billboa... BILLY COLLINS The life of Edward Estlin Cummings began with a childhood in Cambridge, Mass., that he described as ... BILLY COLLINS When I discovered the lyric poem, that advanced not by narrative steps but by blocks and layers of i... BILLY COLLINS I am a nonparticipant of social media. I'm not much attracted to anything that involves the will... BILLY COLLINS I first came across 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' in college, with other anthologized poems b... BILLY COLLINS Poems, for me, begin as a social engagement. I want to establish a kind of sociability or even hospi... BILLY COLLINS The pen is an instrument of discovery rather than just a recording implement. If you write a letter ... BILLY COLLINS A lasting marriage, they say, is one where the two reach for different sections of the Sunday paper.... BILLY COLLINS The first line is the DNA of the poem; the rest of the poem is constructed out of that first line. A... BILLY COLLINS And you are certainly not the pine-scented air. There is just no way that you are the pine-scen... BILLY COLLINS I have my Poetry 180 project, which I've made my main project. We encourage high schools, becaus... BILLY COLLINS I think more influential than Emily Dickinson or Coleridge or Wordsworth on my imagination were Warn... BILLY COLLINS In a world where cultures and religions are recklessly facing off, Sholeh Wolpé writes careful poem... BILLY COLLINS I love to move like a mouse inside this puzzle for the body, balancing the wish to be lost with the ... BILLY COLLINS In a world where cultures and religions are recklessly facing off, Sholeh Wolpé writes careful poem... BILLY COLLINS The name of the author is the first to go followed obediently by the title, the plot, the ... BILLY COLLINS I can see one of them clearly now, walking along with a newspaper tucked under his arm. he... BILLY COLLINS I'm happy to stick with my persona. There are themes of love lost and love regained, but the mai... BILLY COLLINS I try to write very fast. I don't revise very much. I write the poem in one sitting. Just let it... BILLY COLLINS Cummings' career as a writer - and a painter - was as wobbly as his love life. He tried his hand... BILLY COLLINS I'm very aware of the presence of a reader, and that probably is a reaction against a lot of poe... BILLY COLLINS The obituaries shot up to the top of my list when I discovered Robert McG. Thomas, the 'Times... BILLY COLLINS When I became poet laureate, I was in a slightly uncomfortable position because I think a lot of poe... BILLY COLLINS You trip over a word while carrying a tray of vocabulary out to the pool only to discover ... BILLY COLLINS Very few people have actually read Freud, but everyone seems prepared to talk about him in that Wood... BILLY COLLINS The poem is not, as someone put it, deflective of entry. But the real question is, 'What happens... BILLY COLLINS For most Americans, poetry plays no role in their everyday lives. But also for most Americans, conte... BILLY COLLINS To a poet, it's quite ruinous to have a poem distorted, out of shape, or squeezed, shall we say,... BILLY COLLINS When I write, I'm not trying to be funny. It's the way I look at the world. BILLY COLLINS Radio is such a perfect medium for the transmission of poetry, primarily because there just is the v... BILLY COLLINS When I was a young man, I understood that poetry was two things - it was difficult to understand, bu... BILLY COLLINS I learned snails don't have ears. They live in silence. They go slowly. Slowly, slowly in silenc... BILLY COLLINS Often people, when they're confronted with a poem, it's like someone who keep saying 'wh... BILLY COLLINS I think what gets a poem going is an initiating line. Sometimes a first line will occur, and it goes... BILLY COLLINS There's something very authentic about humor, when you think about it. Anybody can pretend to be... BILLY COLLINS It seems only yesterday I used to believe there was nothing under my skin but light. If yo... BILLY COLLINS I feel like the secretary to the morning whose only/ responsibility is to take down its bright,... BILLY COLLINS I'm all for poetry catching up with technology, and just as there are iTunes, I think we should ... BILLY COLLINS ...the trouble with poetry is that it encourages the writing of more poetry... BILLY COLLINS Who is ready to settle for five minutes when three hours does nicely? JACKIE COLLINS Strive for continuous improvement, instead of perfection. KIM COLLINS I have inspiration and feelings of being alive most every day I live. JUDY COLLINS We work to create a new wave of feminism that is more inclusive. I want others to feel equal. It'... PETRA COLLINS I write about real people in disguise. If anything, my characters are toned down-the truth is much m... JACKIE COLLINS People are intrigued by fame, power and wealth and I think Hollywood is the only place where you get... JACKIE COLLINS Agents are essential, because publishers will not read unsolicited manuscripts. JACKIE COLLINS I have considered rap music stars, and there is one in my new book, Lovers and Players, and there is... JACKIE COLLINS Authors change publishers because it's like being married for a long time and suddenly you want ... JACKIE COLLINS Ideas are all around me. If I wasn't interested in them myself, I don't think anyone else wo... JACKIE COLLINS I write synopses after the book is completed. I can't write it beforehand, because I don't k... JACKIE COLLINS Brittany Murphy... who knows if she's going to be around. Kirsten Dunst, I think she's reall... JACKIE COLLINS The husbands, who sometimes have another family who's grown, are going, Now I can spend time wit... JACKIE COLLINS I have written 20 books, and each one is like having a baby. Writing is not easy; some people want t... JACKIE COLLINS Whatever you have a passion for, then you must do. If you want to write, write about something you k... JACKIE COLLINS I really fall in love with my characters, even the bad ones. I love getting together with them. They... JACKIE COLLINS I have this theory that people in Hollywood don't read. They read 'Vanity Fair' and then... JACKIE COLLINS My philosophy is, unless you're sick and need help, why bother? JACKIE COLLINS I don't believe in writing anything that I don't know about or haven't researched about ... JACKIE COLLINS I have visited Australia several times, and I always try to make a point of going to Melbourne becau... JACKIE COLLINS Do not copy my style! The first rule of writing is write about what you know, not what you think you... JACKIE COLLINS I write about the American dream: if you set your mind to do something, you can do it. My fans know ... JACKIE COLLINS If you want to achieve your dreams, you must follow them, and the best way to follow them is not to ... JACKIE COLLINS If immigration reform passes, it'll be a big victory for sanity - nobody really believes it'... GAIL COLLINS I prefer black music in general. PHIL COLLINS It used to bother me - having bigger, fuller brows. I even plucked them once so I'd fit in, but ... LILY COLLINS I think there's a lot of different ways to win. You've seen teams that win championships wit... DOUG COLLINS When the women's movement started in the 1960s, there was a vision of a future where women didn&... GAIL COLLINS It's amazing to see things that are suggested in the book fully developed and so brilliantly rea... SUZANNE COLLINS I actually do not believe that there are any collisions between what I believe as a Christian, and w... FRANCIS COLLINS Can I say that I think it should be against the law for one state to use taxpayer money to try to br... GAIL COLLINS Soaring prescription drug costs have placed a tremendous strain on family budgets. They have also im... SUSAN COLLINS When hired three years ago, I willingly accepted the challenge of leading the Bulls back to the type... DOUG COLLINS I might be in an airport, late or angry with a ticket person, and I'm going to sort of check mys... STEPHEN COLLINS Natural Texas politicians make terrible, terrible presidential candidates. Phil Gramm, I remember th... GAIL COLLINS Yes, frosting. The final defense of the dying. SUZANNE COLLINS Remember?" he asks. "This is where you kissed me." So the heavy dose of morphling administered... SUZANNE COLLINS The Bushes were certainly part of Texas in their mind, but they didn't have the kind of politica... GAIL COLLINS I'm a fiend for costume jewellery and have countless pairs of rhinestone or diamante earrings, w... JOAN COLLINS Certainly Nancy Reagan had an extraordinary effect on her husband. I'm truly not sure that, say,... GAIL COLLINS It's been fascinating working on a set in New York. Just to be in the thick of it is really inte... JESSICA COLLINS I may like the Blizzard best, of all the songs I have written. JUDY COLLINS Both the 'Gregor' series and 'The Hunger Games' are what I call lightning-bolt ideas... SUZANNE COLLINS Yeah, because what it all boils down to is at the end of the day, we are all riding on the same boat... BOOTSY COLLINS In the 1960s, you had this booming economy, and you didn't really have enough men around to fill... GAIL COLLINS Telling a story in a futuristic world gives you this freedom to explore things that bother you in co... SUZANNE COLLINS I was actually the one who decided to move to LA. Mom and I were driving on Sunset Boulevard during ... LILY COLLINS If there's a more helpless feeling than trying to reach someone you love who's trapped underground, ... SUZANNE COLLINS When I finish dressing before a night out and have put on all the accessories, I usually look at mys... JOAN COLLINS We were brash young fellows'. I was always hanging with the older crowd anyway. The musicians we... BOOTSY COLLINS I used to go over to Gene Kelly's house and play volleyball, and Paul Newman and Marlon Brando w... JOAN COLLINS My mind is changing all the time. I can't live in a space that has a fixed aesthetic. I just nee... PETRA COLLINS How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, By all their country's wishes blest! WILLIAM COLLINS Too nicely Jonson knew the critic's part,
Nature in him was almost lost in art. WILLIAM COLLINS And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair. WILLIAM COLLINS To look into that persons eyes and find yourself so completely lost in another world, a world full o... LILY COLLINS The dull people decided years and years ago, as everyone knows, that novel-writing was the lowest sp... WILKIE COLLINS We are liberated by the examples of the brave, the talented, and the successful if we allow ourselve... TERESA COLLINS I'm going to wake Peeta," I say. "No, wait," says Finnick. "Let's do it together. Put our faces... SUZANNE COLLINS I turn and put my lips close to Peeta's and drop my eyelids in imitation... "He offered me sugar and... SUZANNE COLLINS I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you. SUZANNE COLLINS I pull an arrow, whip the notch into place, and am about to let it fly when I'm stopped by the sight... SUZANNE COLLINS That if desperate times call for desperate measures, then I'm free to act as desperately as I wish. SUZANNE COLLINS Katniss," Gale says softly. I recognize that voice. It's the same one he uses to approach wound... SUZANNE COLLINS Look, if you wanted to be babied you should have asked Peeta. SUZANNE COLLINS The idea of being strong for someone else having never entered their heads, I find myself in the pos... SUZANNE COLLINS Tick, tock. SUZANNE COLLINS It must be very fragile, if a handful of berries can bring it down. SUZANNE COLLINS I'm so sorry," I whisper. I lean forward and kiss him. His eyelashes flutter and he looks at me... SUZANNE COLLINS So that's who Finnick loves, I think. Not his string of fancy lovers in the Capitol. But a poor, mad... SUZANNE COLLINS I guess this is a bad time to mention I hung a dummy and painted Seneca Crane's name on it... SUZANNE COLLINS We star-crossed lovers of District 12, who suffered so much and enjoyed so little the rewards of our... SUZANNE COLLINS Aim higher in case you fall short. SUZANNE COLLINS So I only say, "So what should we do with our last few days?" "I just want to spend every... SUZANNE COLLINS I really can't think about kissing when I've got a rebellion to incite. SUZANNE COLLINS I don't want you forgetting how different our circumstaces are. If you die, and I live, there's no l... SUZANNE COLLINS The bird, the pin, the song, the berries, the watch, the cracker, the dress that burst into flames. ... SUZANNE COLLINS I always channel my emotions into my work. That way, I don't hurt anyone but myself. SUZANNE COLLINS So it's you and a syringe against the Capitol? See, this is why no one lets you make the plans. SUZANNE COLLINS My nightmares are usually about losing you. I'm okay once I realize you're here. SUZANNE COLLINS You know, you could live a thousand lifetimes and not deserve him. SUZANNE COLLINS I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now and live in it forever. SUZANNE COLLINS Remember, we're madly in love, so it's all right to kiss me anytime you feel like it. SUZANNE COLLINS You don’t forget the face of the person who was your last hope. SUZANNE COLLINS Knowing it and seeing it are two different things. SUZANNE COLLINS Finnick?" I say, "Maybe some pants?" He looks down at his legs as if noticing his outfit for th... SUZANNE COLLINS And once we reach the city, my stylist will dictate my look for the opening ceremonies tonight anywa... SUZANNE COLLINS One more time? For the audience?" he says. His voice isn't angry. It's hollow, which is worse. Alrea... SUZANNE COLLINS My spirit. This is a new thought. I'm not sure exactly what it means, but it suggests I'm a fighter.... SUZANNE COLLINS And then he gives me a smile that just seems so genuinely sweet with just the right touch of shyness... SUZANNE COLLINS I am not pretty. I am not beautiful. I am as radiant as the sun. SUZANNE COLLINS I knew you'd kiss me." "How?" I say. Because I didn't know myself. "Because I am in pain,... SUZANNE COLLINS I realize, for the first time, how very lonely I've been in the arena. How comforting the presence o... SUZANNE COLLINS Katniss. I remember about the bread. SUZANNE COLLINS Delly lost her temper at Peeta over how he treated you. She got very squeaky. It was like someone st... SUZANNE COLLINS Gale is mine. I am his. Anything else is unthinkable. SUZANNE COLLINS At some point, you have to stop running and turn around and face whoever wants you dead.The hard thi... SUZANNE COLLINS Fire beats roses again. SUZANNE COLLINS In the end, the only person I truly want to comfort me is Haymitch, because he loves Peeta, too. SUZANNE COLLINS Peeta,” I say lightly. “You said at the interview you’d had a crush on me forever. When did fo... SUZANNE COLLINS You're alive," I whisper, pressing my palms against my cheeks, feeling the smile that's so wide it m... SUZANNE COLLINS I just...I just miss him. And I hate being so alone. SUZANNE COLLINS You're punishing him over and over for things that are out of his control. Now, I'm not saying you s... SUZANNE COLLINS I had to do that. At least once. SUZANNE COLLINS No problem," Gale replies. "I wake up ten times a night anyway." "To make sure Katniss is still... SUZANNE COLLINS Because I can count on my fingers the number of sunsets I have left, and I don't want to miss any of... SUZANNE COLLINS All those months of taking it for granted that Peeta thought I was wonderful are over. Finally, he c... SUZANNE COLLINS Stay with me. Always. SUZANNE COLLINS I'll tell them how I survive it. I'll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pl... SUZANNE COLLINS I know what blood poisoning is, Katniss," says Peeta. "Even if my mother isn't a healer." I'm j... SUZANNE COLLINS No. Now, shut up and eat your pears. SUZANNE COLLINS You have a... remarkable memory." "I remember everything about you. You're the one who wasn't p... SUZANNE COLLINS Really, the combination of the scabs and the ointment looks hideous. I can't help enjoying his distr... SUZANNE COLLINS I realize only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me. SUZANNE COLLINS Deep in the meadow, hidden far away A cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray Forget your woes and... SUZANNE COLLINS What about Gale?" "He's not a bad kisser either," I say shortly. "And it was okay with bo... SUZANNE COLLINS Oh, Peeta, Don't make me sorry I restarted your heart. SUZANNE COLLINS There's a chance that the old Peeta, the one who loves you, is still inside. Trying to get back to y... SUZANNE COLLINS But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a... SUZANNE COLLINS At a few minutes before four, Peeta turns to me again. "Your favorite colour . . . it's green?" SUZANNE COLLINS She's not here," I tell him. Buttercup hisses again. "She's not here. You can hiss all you like. You... SUZANNE COLLINS I raise my left arm and twist my neck down to rip off the pill on my sleeve. Instead my teeth sink i... SUZANNE COLLINS They'll either want to kill you, kiss you, or be you. SUZANNE COLLINS That what I need to survive is not Gale's fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire ... SUZANNE COLLINS Closing my eyes doesn't help. Fire burns brighter in the darkness. SUZANNE COLLINS I think....you still have no idea. The effect you can have. SUZANNE COLLINS I drag myself out of nightmares each morning and find there's no relief in waking. SUZANNE COLLINS Technically, I am unarmed. But no one should ever underestimate the harm that fingernails can do. Es... SUZANNE COLLINS Are you, are you coming to the tree? Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me. Stra... SUZANNE COLLINS Ally." Peeta says the words slowly, tasting it. "Friend. Lover. Victor. Enemy. Fiancee. Target. Mutt... SUZANNE COLLINS I clench his hands to the point of pain. "Stay with me." His pupils contract to pinpoints, dial... SUZANNE COLLINS There are much worse games to play. SUZANNE COLLINS Some walks you have to take alone. SUZANNE COLLINS You're a painter. You're a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in y... SUZANNE COLLINS