I'm very aware of the presence of a reader, and that probably is a reaction against a lot of poems that I do read which seem oblivious to my presence as a reader.
Billy Collins
Related As a reader, coming to my reading as a writer immersed in fairytales, I can't help but notice in... KATE BERNHEIMER Knowledge causes depression and a lot of pressure. DEYTH BANGER You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part. HENRY JAMES I've read a lot of books on the laws of attraction, and in my home, I have a big book on Muhamma... CONOR MCGREGOR She was scarcely a year older than I was, dark-haired, slender, with a face that would break your he... GEORGE R.R. MARTIN You're still lovely," Mor said a bit gently. Elain offered a half smile. "I suppose that war m... SARAH J. MAAS I suppose people might consider me a 'loose' reader, as I seem willing to read anything of q... CHANG-RAE LEE I am often asked how it is that I am able to value people to such a deep degree. Apparently, I exhib... C. JOYBELL C. I realized that day that blessings come in a variety of shapes, colors, and sizes. CRAIG GROESCHEL I'm not saying that I'm better than anyone... I'm just saying that I'm one-of-a-kind. C LIONG A person of value have skill, a vision & a deep desire to achieve what they dream for. Happiness com... DR ANIL KUMAR SINHA A man of guilt acknowledges and changes himself immediately on being hinted slightly about his fault... ANUJ SOMANY The school year progressed slowly. I felt as if I had been in the sixth grade for years, yet it was ... LUCY GREALY The value of a consultant;An outsider can see what an insider cannot see or has decided to ignore. DAVID ATTA (A.K.A DAVIED ATTLARS & MR DAIN) A family is like a card game, on one hand, you can get a really bad hand and on the other, your hand... GARY F EVANS... The worth of a person’s quote is in his or her heart where it takes the birth and the value of the... ANUJ SOMANY Walking the rugged trail of the unknown destiny can be filled with walls crashing and cracks on the ... GARY F EVANS... It makes you wonder why the human race can be so selfish and self-centered sometimes, when on cold w... GARY F EVANS... To have a pet in the family is to invite good health into your lives.It brings happiness to all and ... GARY F EVANS... I can see you have a great deal of water in your personality. Water never waits. It changes shape an... ARTHUR GOLDEN كنت أصمت أذعن لمصيري. أحمل دميتي,أنزع ملابسها, أشد شعره�... مليكة مستظرف The norm which the society at large has set today categorically is in the form of preventive measure... HENRIETTA NEWTON MARTIN LEGAL CONSULTANT The idea of how to read a poem is based on the idea that poetry needs you as a reader. That the expe... EDWARD HIRSCH I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool - and I'm not any of those - to say that I don't w... MAYA ANGELOU The issue isn't whether he loved you, it's how much. Too much. Love can be poison SARAH J. MAAS I am broken and healing, but every piece of my heart belong to you. SARAH J. MAAS He thinks he'll be remembered as the villain in the story. But I forgot to tell him that the villain... SARAH J. MAAS Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold ... GEORGE R.R. MARTIN Hodor," said Hodor. GEORGE R.R. MARTIN You do what you love, what you need SARAH J. MAAS I turned. Rhysand leaned against the archway into the sitting room, arms crossed, wings nowhere... SARAH J. MAAS She wasn't bitter. She was sad, though. But it was a hopeful kind of sad. The kind of sad that just ... STEPHEN CHBOSKY So, I guess we are who we are for alot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even... STEPHEN CHBOSKY I love my mom so much. I don't care if that's corny to say. I think on my next birthday, I'm going t... STEPHEN CHBOSKY We Are All Infinite STEPHEN CHBOSKY (All the grief she had suffered over her lifetime had moulded her face into a mask of eternal sadnes... JEAN SASSON You can't just sit there and put everyone's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You ... STEPHEN CHBOSKY I saw other people there. Old men sitting alone. Young girls with blue eye shadow and awkward jaws. ... STEPHEN CHBOSKY That one moment when you know you are not a sad story. You are ALIVE. STEPHAN CHBOSKY Somos quienes somos por un montón de razones.Quizás nunca conozcamos la mayoría de ellas.Pero aun... STEPHEN CHBOSKY Ambos dijeron que tomara asiento y parecían hablar en serio, así que me senté. STEPHEN CHBOSKY I know these will all be stories some day, and our pictures will become old photographs. We all beco... STEPHEN CHBOSKY So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybewe'll never know most of them. STEPHEN CHBOSKY So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. STEPHEN CHBOSKY There's nothing like the deep breathes after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore st... STHEPHEN CHBOSKY no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks, when the teacher rings the bell, drop... STEPHEN CHBOSKY I don't know the significance of this, but I find it very interesting. STEPHEN CHBOSKY Maybe it’s sad that these are now memories. And maybe it’s not sad. STEPHEN CHBOSKY I'm a huge classics fan. I love Ernest Hemingway and J.D. Salinger. I'm that guy who rereads... JOHN KRASINSKI A lot of my poems either have historical sequences or other kinds of chronological grids where I'... BILLY COLLINS Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you... C. JOYBELL C. Like a deep sad note played beneath the ocean waving through the orb the memories of ... PAWAN MISHRA I'm a huge classics fan. I love Ernest Hemingway and J. D. Salinger. I'm that guy who reread... JOHN KRASINSKI I think the reason I'm a writer is because first, I was a reader. I loved to read. I read a lot ... ANDREW CLEMENTS That boy had wanted to be Ser Arthur Dayne, but someplace along the way he had become the Smiling Kn... GEORGE R.R. MARTIN I'm a writer because I love reading. I love the conversation between a reader and a writer, and ... GARTH STEIN History is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will... GEORGE R.R. MARTIN I sometimes ask people, 'Can you be aware of your own presence? Not the thoughts that you're... ECKHART TOLLE Plunging in “truths” about God is like walking on the bottom of a sea that is not there, searchi... MARIANA FULGER We die a day at a time BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA it's okay to feel things. And be who you are about them. STEPHEN CHOBOSKY All concepts of making a point is another failure of communication. DEYTH BANGER I just want silence... nothing less... nothing more. DEYTH BANGER This is going to take a while. I'm a fantasy author. We have trouble with the concept of brevity. BRANDON SANDERSON Be yourself and people will like you. JEFF KINNEY The best person I know is Myself. JEFF KINNEY If you play football, then for every goal that you score, ask your self, what is the 'grudge of a li... APURVA GAGLANI I don’t want to start thinking again. Not like I have this last week. I can’t think again. Not e... STEPHEN CHBOSKY It's strange to describe reading a book as a really great experience, but that's kind of how it felt... STEPHEN CHBOSKY The mightiest power of death is not that it can make people die, but that it can make the people you... FREDRIK BACKMAN Closed eyes, heart not beating, but a living love. AVIS COREA I’m caught between trying to live my life, and trying to run from it. STEPHEN CHBOSKY I don't want to be somebody's crush.if somebody likes me, i want them to like the real me, not what ... STEPHEN CHBOSKY لم يكن بمقدوري سوى الهروب إلى عالمي الخاص: إلى الحلم. أت... مليكة مستظرف I'm a very promiscuous reader. My dad's a big science fiction fan, so I'd read 'Dune... MARGO LANAGAN How lucky I am to have known somebody and something that saying goodbye to is so damned awful. EVANS G. VALENS She made a fence of phrases, which seemed a treachery to herself. ELIZABETH TAYLOR You are the blood of the dragon. You can make a hat. GEORGE R.R. MARTIN I am a Graham Greene fan - I'm just a ferocious reader. I read an awful lot when I get the time. ANDREA RISEBOROUGH I was very grateful to have heard it again. Because I guess we all forget sometimes. And I think eve... STEPHEN CHBOSKY I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if... STEPHEN CHBOSKY I wasn't a very discriminating reader. I read just about everything that came along. CHARLES KURALT I'm a professional non-fiction reader, that's what I do. But in my 20s we had our own vampir... DEBORAH HARKNESS One of the things I love, and I'm a voracious reader as well as a writer, is books that surprise... GEORGE R. R. MARTIN Let your true love be your lifetime treasure and beyond. ANGELICA HOPES I want to share this bed with you, though," I breathed. "I want you to hold me." Stars flicker... SARAH J. MAAS I would love to be in 'The Hunger Games.' I'm one of the few people who haven't read... CASSI THOMSON Kehidupan perempuan itu sembilan bagian kacau dan satu bagian ajaib, kau akan segera mengetahuinya..... GEORGE R.R. MARTIN Jaime smiled knowingly. Men will read all sorts of things into a knowing smile if you let them. GEORGE R.R. MARTIN I feel comfortable in the presence of oddity. Probably because I'm a little bit odd. MARTHA PLIMPTON Going back to my own past as a reader, I was a big, big reader of romances, particularly as a teenag... NANCY WERLIN I wish I was home", She said miserably. She tried so hard to be brave, to be fierce as a... GEORGE R.R. MARTIN Each man lives in his own universe and when he dies the world is over BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA I believe that there is a Matrix and... to be more accurate I am in the Pornography Matrix. DEYTH BANGER Though we are terrorized by death, it's not different from birth, it just happens BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA I'm an avid reader myself, and what any one reader accesses at any one time is very powerful and... DARREN BOYD A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in ... GEORGE R.R. MARTIN I was not a pet, not a doll, not an animal. I was a survivor, and I was strong. I would no... SARAH J. MAAS I sipped from my wine. "And if he had grabbed me?" There was nothing but uncompromising w... SARAH J. MAAS There you are. I've been looking for you. His first words to me— not a lie at a... SARAH J. MAAS
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 I'm a great believer in poetry out of the classroom, in public places, on subways, trains, on co... 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 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