Condie Ally Quotes & Sayings

It is strange that an absence can feel like presence. A missing so complete that if it were to go away, I would turn around, stunned, to see that the room is empty after all when before it had something. — Ally Condie

Is falling in love with someone's story the same thing as falling in love with the person himself? — Ally Condie

In some ways, our being Matched is the biggest strike against me. How was she supposed to love me when the Society said she should? — Ally Condie

I'm drawn to him and tied to him with the cords of a thousand different memories. — Ally Condie

My father has always broken the rules for those he loves, just as my mother has always kept them for the same reason. [...] 'We can't give you the life you want,' my father says, his eyes wet. He looks at my mother and she nods at him to continue. 'We wish we could. But we can help you have a chance to decide which life you want. — Ally Condie

But before I do,
I open the case and watch the spinning arrow. It settles on a point, but I still spin, wondering where to go. — Ally Condie

I understood why Leo called the fountain Baby Niagara. Because once you see something big, you can't help seeing it in everything small. — Ally Condie

Each word I write brings me closer to finding the right ones. — Ally Condie

The Society likes to keep things from us, but the wind doesn't care what we know. It brings hints of what has happened as we slip farther into the canyon - the smell of smoke and a white substance that falls on us. White ash. I don't for one moment think that it's snow. — Ally Condie

Perhaps this is what I learned in the canyons: What I am, what I'm not, what I'll give, and what I won't. — Ally Condie

The evening air holds the bittersweet tang of what might have been, — Ally Condie

I will try to forget that Ky said "home" when he looked into my eyes. — Ally Condie

The way the two of them look at each other is like touching. — Ally Condie

This is the difference between us. I live to sort, he knows how to create. — Ally Condie

Was there a stolen touch before he found himself again at the bottom of the hill with the stone to push? Did he smile to himself as he set, again, to rolling it? — Ally Condie

For what is the point of
having something lovely if you never share it?
It would be like having a poem, a beautiful wild poem that no
one else has, and burning it. — Ally Condie

If only it were real. — Ally Condie

Not many people know how to make letters like this," he says. "Do you ever teach anyone?"
"Only once," I say. — Ally Condie

Watching Ky wake is better than a sunrise. — Ally Condie

Some people think the stars must look closer from up here. They don't. When you're up here, you realize how distant they really are - how impossible to reach. — Ally Condie

My heart will always fly his name. I won't go gentle. I'l find a way to soar like the angels in the stories and I will find him. — Ally Condie

The four of us sit together in the sea of blue, the train twisting and turning like a river running, and I know it's hard to fight against a current as strong as the Society. — Ally Condie

I don't trust the Society, and I don't trust the rebelions, I don't choose either of them, I've seen what both can do. — Ally Condie

At first, I thought it was having the picture that made it special, but it's not even that. It's looking at something without being watched, without being told how to see. That's what the picture has given us. — Ally Condie

Because I can see in his eyes that he wants that kiss as much as I do. — Ally Condie

Time, Vick said, "is what we don't have. — Ally Condie

It's not their business unless the Society says that it is. — Ally Condie

When I came up choking I could tell that she saw the differences in me. Her eyes rested on the scrape on my face from the Outer Provinces. But it was as though she was a little like me. She noticed the differences and then she decided what mattered and what didn't. She laughed with me then, and I loved the way the laugh reached her green eyes and crinkled the skin around them. — Ally Condie

We are not lost mermaids with seaweed hair and coins for eyes, but human girls, alive and found.
We are sisters, and we did not drown. — Ally Condie

Blue is the most common eye color in Oria Province, but there is something different about his eyes and I'm not sure what it is. More depth? I wonder what he sees when he looks at me. If he seems to have depth to me, do I seem shallow and transparent to him? — Ally Condie

That's when I realize that the statistics the Officials give us do not matter to me. I know there are many people who are happy and I am glad for them. But this is Ky. If he is the one person who falls by the wayside while the other ninety-nine are happy and fulfilled, that is not right with me anymore. I realize that I don't care about the Officer pacing below or the other hikers among the trees, or really anything else at all, and that is when I realize how dangerous this truly is. — Ally Condie

You know" - Hale's breath was warm against Kat's ear in the chilly ballroom- "I don't know that both of us really have to be here ... "
The slide changed. While hundreds of mathematicians waited with baited breath, the boy beside Kat whispered,
"I could go make some calls ... check on some things ... "
"Play some blackjack?"
"Well, when in Rome ... "
"Rome is tomorrow, babe," Kat reminded him.
He nodded. "Right. — Ally Carter

Newrose, Oldrose, Quean Anne's lace.
Water, river, stone and sun
Wind over hill, under tree.
Past the border none can see.
Climbing into dark for you,
Will you climb in stars for me?
P.124 — Ally Condie

Her voice is lonely and full of longing: for him. — Ally Condie

If I couldn't name it, would I even know what it is? Would I even feel it at all? — Ally Condie

Something has gone crooked here; night is coming. Am I drawing close to the end? It almost feels like it - that there can't be much farther to go, having come so far already - and yet nothing feels finished. — Ally Condie

Good-bye, I say to Grandfather, and to my father, and I hold the tube in the river and pause a moment. We hold the choices of our fathers and mothers in our hands and when we cling on or let them slip between our fingers, those choices become our own. — Ally Condie

There are many of them in the world, I think, good men and women with their frail deeds. Wondering what might have been, how things might have danced, if we had only dared to be bright. — Ally Condie

Because I feel no anger toward my mother. Only loss, and loss is a feeling you can't fight your way out of as easily. — Ally Condie

Do not go gentle into that good night. — Ally Condie

It gets harder and steeper, but not impossible. — Ally Condie

In the absence of real thunder, he's making his own. — Ally Condie

Lightning. Once it has forked, hot-white, from sky to earth, there is no going back — Ally Condie

He's in pain. I am, too. It strikes me that perhaps this is part of what we are fighting to choose. Which pain we feel. — Ally Condie

Hearing it, I wonder how I could have ever thought that the birdcall I heard earlier sounded anything like the Officer's whistle. — Ally Condie

A minute ago you told me that you thought I was cute."
"Yeah," Leo said. "I mean, I do think that. But you're not my girlfriend. You're my person."
I knew right away what he meant.
I thought he was cute and he thought I was cute but it was different than it was when people have crushes.
With Leo I'd fallen into another kind of like. I couldn't wait to tell him stuff and I loved hearing him laugh at my jokes and I loved laughing at his jokes. He made me feel like I had a spot in the world.
It felt as if Leo and I could like each other all our lives.
So I hugged him.
He was my person too. — Ally Condie

I don't know what Miles thought about while we walked home but I thought about Leo. I guess I was wrong about him fitting in with his family. And I should have realized that he would fit in because that's one thing I do know for sure. That it is possible to be different and still belong to your family. For them to love you like crazy. — Ally Condie

Apparently I was predicted to finish second. My stop must not have been as long as I thought. — Ally Condie

Other kids grew up telling stories about the Pilot," Caleb says. "But I grew up watching him fly. — Ally Condie

She cried before she slept. I reached out to touch the ends of her hair. She didn't notice. I didn't know what to do. Listening to her made me ache. I felt tears stream down my face too. And when I accidentally brushed Eli with my arm his face was wet where his tears ran down. We have all been carved out by our sorrow. Cut deep like canyon walls. — Ally Condie

Why won't you hold me?" I ask, drawing back a little.
He laughs a little, holds out his hands as if in explanation. They are covered in dirt and paint and blood.
I pull his hand to mine, put my palm against his. I can feel the grit of sand, the slick of paint, and the cuts and scrapes that speak of his own journey.
"It will all come clean," I tell him. — Ally Condie

I'm just a butterfly, a mourning cloak, sealed inside a cocoon with blnd eyes and stiky wings. And suddenly I wonder if the cocoons sometimes do not open, if the butterfly inside is ever simply not strong enough to break through. — Ally Condie

Can you eat all of that?" "Are you joking? Of course I can." Xander acts offended. — Ally Condie

Things aren't fair. It's our job to do what we can to change that. — Ally Condie

They could not write their names, but I can write mine, and I will again, somewhere where it will last for a long, long time. I will find Ky, and then I will find that place. — Ally Condie

You left me before you left Oria. — Ally Condie

I have always loved the way she says my name. — Ally Condie

Crossing the Bar
"Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar."
Lord Tennyson — Ally Condie

I did not reach Thee But my feet slip nearer every day Three Rivers and a Hill to cross One Desert and a Sea I shall not count the journey one When I am telling thee. — Ally Condie

In my mind, a stream ran and snow fell, and we said good-bye on the bank, and I took to the water and he ran alongside it, bringing these words the length of the river. — Ally Condie

We are the ones who are alive. Here. With everything to lose — Ally Condie

Cassia doesn't like to sort people. I'm all too good at it and I worry I'll grow to like it too much.It's a talent.[...]And all it takes is a misstep or two for that talent to become a liability instead of an asset. — Ally Condie

How we
never, ever fight. — Ally Condie

But who would read them?" I ask, laughing. "I would," he says. — Ally Condie

I lift the tablet to my mouth. And then I hear a voice from a place deep in my memory. You are strong enough to go without. Fine, Grandfather, I think to myself. I will be strong enough to go without the tablet. But there are other things I'm not strong enough to go without, and I intend to fight for them. — Ally Condie

Because if she isn't angry with him, how can I be? — Ally Condie

He's throwing everything he can into the air on the chance that something might take flight. And we're the smallest, weakest bird. — Ally Condie

But I've already broken the glass; I've given the green away; I've made my choice. — Ally Condie

You left me like he left you. — Ally Condie

Neither of us moves for a moment, locked instead in each other's eyes and in the branches of this Hill we might never finish climbing. — Ally Condie

And out of nowhere, I think: So this is how it feels to stand at the edge of a canyon. — Ally Condie

They did. And if any came, we cut them down. — Ally Condie

I wonder if there have been other errors. — Ally Condie

I'm not Rising or Society — Ally Condie

What would Grandfather think of this jump I'm taking? Would this be one time he would tell me to hang on to the edge with all my might? Would he say to cling to the side of the board until my fingers became bloody and scraped? Or would he say that it was all right to let go? — Ally Condie

Things happen whether you deserve them or not — Ally Condie

Cassia and I sit as near to each other as we can. She leans into me and I keep my arms around her. I don't fool myself that I hold her together- she does that on her own- but holding her keeps me from flying apart. — Ally Condie

Suddenly, I see the other side of choice. Of all of us having it. Sometimes we will choose wrong. — Ally Condie

Only when I hold onto nothing can I be the best, only then can I be what they expect me to be. — Ally Condie

My father was never the Pilot, but he was one of the people standing in line. — Ally Condie

If they feel something, they fight. If you were in a place with no pain, why would you want to come back? — Ally Condie

And then I got it. Leo wanted to go so badly because he wanted not only to be in the presence of greatness, but because he wanted to share something he thought was amazing with his dad. — Ally Condie

Knowledge doesn't fail us. — Ally Condie

Two little dark figures, looking up. Are they looking at me? Is is him? This far away there's only one way to know. I point to the sky. — Ally Condie

Something beautiful. My hands are stained red — Ally Condie

You have intuition, too. The Society says it doesn't really exist, but it does. — Ally Condie

People can be miracles. — Ally Condie

I was trying to find a way to you," Ky says. "I wanted to cross the plain and get back to the Society somehow. We took some things from the farmers' township for trade. — Ally Condie

And then I picture my father closing the door gently but firmly and keeping me safe inside this house. Inside these walls where I have been safe for so long. But this house isn't safe anymore, I remind myself. This house is where I first saw Ky's face on a microcard. Where they searched my father. Is there a safe place anywhere in this Borough? In this City, this Province, this world? — Ally Condie

It was as though I saw for the first time that
life could branch into different paths, take different directions. — Ally Condie

Death," I say. " It's the one thing they haven't fully conquered. They want to know more about it. — Ally Condie

My dad used to say that life was like turning the pages in a book. 'Oh, look,' he'd say, pretending to flip the pages in the air after we'd had something bad happen to us. 'Bad luck here on page ninety-seven. And on ninety-eight. But something good here on ninety-nine! All you had to do was keep reading! — Ally Condie

I don't know where I find the air and I keep getting the words wrong: From out our bourne of death and space the flood will wash me far- but it doesn't even matter. I never knew that words might not matter. — Ally Condie

I know how it feels when people look right through you, or worse, see you as something or someone other than what you are. — Ally Condie

For a moment nothing happens. The figure stands still and I stand cold and alive and-
He starts to run. I make my way down the rocks, slipping, sliding, trying to get to the plain. I wish, I think, my feet clumsy, moving too fast, not fast enough, I wish i could run, I wish I'd written a whole poem, I wish I kept the compass-
And then I reach the plain and wish for nothing but what I have. Ky. Running toward me. I have never seen him run like this, fast, free, strong, wild. He looks so beautiful, his body moves so right. He stops just close enough for me to see the blue of his eyes and forget the red on my hands and the green I wish I wore. "You're here," he says, breathing hard and hungry. sweat and dirt cover his face, and he looks at me as though I'm the only thing he ever needed to see. I open my mouth to say yes. But I only have time to breathe in before he closes the last of the distance. All I know is the kiss. — Ally Condie

It's Ky's move. In the quiet before the Ky takes his turn, Xander watches him carefully. Ky's hand hovers over the board. For a moment, as he holds the piece in the air, I see where he could put it to win and I know he sees it, too, that he planned the whole game for that last move. He looks at Xander and Xander looks back, both of them locked in some kind of challenge that seems to run deeper and older than what's happening here on this board.
Then Ky moves his hand and puts his piece down in a spot where Xander can eventually overtake him for the win. Ky doesn't hessitate once he places the piece; he sets it down with a solid sound and leans back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling. I think I see the slightest hint of a smile on his lips but I can't be sure. — Ally Condie

All the studies show that the best age to die is eighty. It's long enough that we can have a complete life experience, but not so long that we feel useless. — Ally Condie

It's never really lost to you as long as you remember it. — Ally Condie

I help him to reach her. For a moment, I am a part of it all. Then I'm just apart. — Ally Condie

I should be with Ky in the infirmary. i should be with Xander in prinson. I should be sorting for a cure. can only try to do all three and hope these pieces of myself are enough to find something that can make me whole — Ally Condie