Quotes & Sayings About Katniss

Don't be a fool, Katniss. Think for yourself. — Suzanne Collins

Katniss, it's just hunting. You're the best hunter I know." Gale

"It's not just hunting. They're armed, they think." --Katniss

"So do you. And you've had more practice. Real practice. You know how to kill." --Gale

"Not people." --Katniss

"How different can it be, really?" --Gale

The awful thing is that if I can forget they're people, it will be no different at all. --Katniss — Suzanne Collins

Katniss isn't the kind of hero we're used to seeing in fiction. She reacts more than she acts, she doesn't want to be a leader, and by the end of Mockingjay, she hasn't come into her own or risen like a phoenix from the ashes for some triumphant moment that gives us a sense of satisfaction with how far our protagonist has come.
She's not a Buffy. She's not a Bella. She limps across the finish line when we're used to seeing heroes racing; she eases into a quiet, steady love instead of falling fast and hard. — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

I'm so tired, Katniss. — Suzanne Collins

Are you preparing for another war, Plutarch?" I ask.
"Oh, not now. Now we're in a sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated," he says. "But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction. Although who knows? Maybe this will be it, Katniss. — Suzanne Collins

A leather bag filled with food and a flask of hot tea. — Suzanne Collins

Actually, Katniss isn't complaining because she has no intention of staying with the "Star Squad," but she recognizes the necessity of getting to the Capitol before carrying out any plan. — Suzanne Collins

Peeta, how come I never know when you're having a nightmare?" I say.
"I don't know. I don't think I cry out or thrash around or anything. I just come to, paralyzed with terror," he says.
"You should wake me," I say, thinking about how I can interrupt his sleep two or three times on a bad night. About how long it can take to calm me down.
"It's not necessary. My nightmares are usually about losing you," he says. "I'm okay once I realize you're here. — Suzanne Collins

I don't stand a chance if he doesn't get better. You'll never be able to let him go. You'll always feel wrong about being with me."
"The way I always felt wrong kissing him because of you," I say.
Gale holds my gaze. "If I thought that was true, I could almost live with the rest of it. — Suzanne Collins

Katniss: I'm coming back into focus when Caesar asks him if he has a girlfriend back home.
Peeta: (Gives an unconvincing shake of head.)
Caesar: Handsome lad like you. There must be some special girl. Come on, what's her name?
Peeta: Well, there is this one girl. I've had a crush on her ever since I can remember. But I'm pretty sure she didn't know I was alive until the reaping.
Caesar: She have another fellow?
Peeta: I don't know, but a lot of boys like her.
Caesar: So, here's what you do. You win, you go home. She can't turn you down, eh?
Peeta: I don't think it's going to work out. Winning ... won't help in my case.
Caesar: Why ever not?
Peeta: Because ... because ... she came here with me.
Caesar: Oh, that is a piece of bad luck.
Peeta: It's not good.
Caesar: Well, I don't think any of us can blame you. It'd be hard not to fall for that young lady. She didn't know?
Peeta: Not until now. — Suzanne Collins

Oh, that I do know ... Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can't survive without. — Suzanne Collins

I think of the snarling, cruel exchange back on the hovercraft. The bitterness that followed. But all I say is "I can't believe you didn't rescue Peeta."
"I know," he replies.
There's a sense of incompleteness. And not because he hasn't apologized. But because we were a team. We had a deal to keep Peeta safe. A drunken, unrealistic deal made in the dark of night, but a deal just the same. And in my heart of hearts, I know we both failed.
"Now you say it," I tell him.
"I can't believe you let him out of your sight that night," says Haymitch. — Suzanne Collins

What will break me into a million pieces so that I am beyond repair, beyond usefulness? — Suzanne Collins

Katniss?" Peeta says. I meet his eyes, knowing my face must be some shade of green. He mouths the words. "How about that kiss? — Suzanne Collins

I want the audience to recognize you when you're in the arena," says Cinna dreamily. "Katniss, the girl who was on fire. — Suzanne Collins

I realize only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me. — Suzanne Collins

Yes, they have to have a victor. Without a victor, the whole thing would blow up in the Gamemakers' faces. They'd have failed the Capitol. Might possibly even be executed, slowly and painfully, while the cameras broadcast it to every screen in the country. — Suzanne Collins

I don't like self-righteous people," I say.
"What's to like?" says Haymitch, who begins sucking the dregs out of the empty bottles. — Suzanne Collins

You're punishing him over and over for things that are out of his control. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't have a fully loaded weapon next to you round the clock. But I think it's time you flipped this little scenario in your head. If you'd been taken by the Capitol, and hijacked, and then tried to kill Peeta, is this the way he would be treating you? demands Haymitch.
I fall silent. It isn't. It isn't how he would be treating me at all. He would be trying to get me back at any cost. Not shutting me out, abandoning me, greeting me with hostility at every turn. — Suzanne Collins

There's a meeting in Command. Disregard your current schedule,' he says.
'Done,' I say.
'Did you follow it at all today?' he asks in exasperation.
'Who knows? I'm mentally disoriented.' I hold up my wrist to show my medical bracelet and realize it's gone.
'See? I can't even remember they took my bracelet.'
(Katniss and Boggs) — Suzanne Collins

Not every girl can be Isabelle Lightwood or Katniss Everdeen. I think the true measure of a hero is what a person does with what they have, how hard they are willing to fight, and how far they are willing to go to set things right. — Sarah Cross

There's an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I've been thinking about a lot while writing this essay. In it, Buffy sacrifices her own life to save her sister, and right before she does, she tells her sister that the hardest thing to do in the world is to live - ironic words coming from someone about to kill herself for the greater good. As I'm writing this, I just keep thinking that Katniss never gets to sacrifice herself. She doesn't get the heroic death. She survives - and that leaves her doing the hardest thing in the world: living in it once so many of the ones she loves are gone. — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

If he wants me broken, then I will have to be whole. — Suzanne Collins

That's when I hear the scream. So full of fear and pain it ices my blood. And so familiar. I drop the spile, forget where I am or what lies ahead, only know I must reach her, protect her. I run wildly in the direction of the voice, heedless of danger, ripping through vines and branches, through anything that keeps me from reaching her.
From reaching my little sister. — Suzanne Collins

I read The Hunger Games voraciously and was extremely annoyed when interrupted by such inconsequential things as 'Christmas dinner.' (God, Mom, did you not understand Katniss was being pursued by the mutts? You have several children, why does it always have to be about collecting the whole set all the time?) — Sarah Rees Brennan

Let the Seventy-forth Hunger Games begin, Cato, I think. Let them begin for real. — Suzanne Collins

Your stylist turned out to be prophetic in his wardrobe choice. Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, you have provided a spark that, left unattended, may grow to an inferno that destroys Panem. — Suzanne Collins

I wish they were all dead and we were, too. It would be best.
Well, there's no good response to that. I can hardly dispute it since I was walking around with a syringe to kill Peeta when I found them. Do I really want him dead? What I want ... what I want is to have him back. — Suzanne Collins

I find myself focusing up at the sky - the only roof left - because too many memories are drowning me. — Suzanne Collins

There are much worse games to play. — Suzanne Collins

It seems like everyone I know has very strong feelings about which boy is the best fit for Katniss, but also because the books themselves contain a commentary on the way audiences latch onto romance, even (and maybe especially) when lives are at
stake. — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

My mother was beautiful once too. Or so they tell me. -Katniss — Suzanne Collins

that cold and calculating? Gale didn't say, "Katniss will pick whoever it will break her heart to give up," or even "whoever she can't live without." Those would have implied I was motivated by a kind of passion. But my best friend predicts I will choose the — Suzanne Collins

Prettying you up for slaughter?" he suggests. "It's more complicated than that. I know them. They're not evil or cruel. They're not even smart. Hurting them, it's like hurting children. They don't see ... I mean, they don't know ... " I get knotted up in my words. "They don't know what, Katniss?" he says. "That tributes - who are the actual children involved — Suzanne Collins

I volunteer as tribute!

~Katniss Everdeen — Suzanne Collins

I say we try it,' says Peeta. 'Katniss is right.'
Finnick looks at Johanna and raises his eyebrows. He will not go forward without her. 'All right,' she says finally. 'It's better than hunting them down in the jungle, anyway. And I doubt they'll figure out our plan, since we can barely understand it ourselves. — Suzanne Collins

The mayor finishes the dreary Treaty of Treason and motions for Peeta and me to shake hands. His are as solid and warm as those loaves of bread. Peeta looks me right in the eye and gives my hand what I think is meant to be a reassuring squeeze. Maybe it's just a nervous spasm.
We turn back the crowd as the anthem of Panem plays.
Oh well, I think. There will be twenty-four of us. Odds are someone else will kill him before I do.
Of course, the odds have not been very dependable of late. — Suzanne Collins

Jarod Kintz gets so many retweets, he's like Katniss Everdeen with tourettes in a forest full of Mockingjays. — Ryan Lilly

Of course you are. The tributes were necessary to the Games, too. Until they weren't," I say. "And then we were very disposable - right, Plutarch? — Suzanne Collins

You'll never be able to let him go. You'll always feel wrong about being with me. — Suzanne Collins

You know, I think this is the first time we've ever done anything normal together. — Suzanne Collins

Katniss Everdeen owes her last name to Bathsheba Everdene, the lead character in 'Far From the Madding Crowd.' The two are very different, but both struggle with knowing their hearts. — Suzanne Collins

I can hear him weeping but I don't care. They probably won't even bother to question her, she's so far gone. Gone right off the deep end years ago in her Games. There's a good chance I'm headed in the same direction. Maybe I'm already going crazy and no one has the heart to tell me. I feel crazy enough. — Suzanne Collins

No fancy hair and clothes, no flaming capes. Just me. Looking like I could be headed for the woods. It calms me. - Katniss — Suzanne Collins

I drink in his wholeness, the soudness of his body and mind. It runs through me like the morphling they give me in the hospital, dulling the pain of the last weeks. — Suzanne Collins

All right, so give me some idea of what you can do," says Haymitch.
I can't do anything," says Peeta, "unless you count baking bread."
Sorry, I don't. Katniss. I already know you're handy with a knife," says Haymitch.
Not really. But I can hunt," I say. "With a bow and arrow."
And you're good?" asks Haymitch.
I have to think about it. I've been putting food on the table for four years. That's no small task. I'm not as good as my father was, but he'd had more practice. I've better aim than Gale, but I've had more practice. He's a genius with traps and snares. "I'm all right," I say. — Suzanne Collins

What do we do know?(Peeta)
I guess we try to forget ... (Katniss)
I don't want to forget.(Peeta) — Suzanne Collins

My spirit. This is a new thought. I'm not sure exactly what it means, but it suggests I'm a fighter. In a sort of brave way. It's not as if I'm never friendly. Okay, maybe I don't go around loving everybody I meet, maybe my smiles are hard to come by, but i do care for some people. — Suzanne Collins

Beetee's glad we find the plan hard to follow, because then our enemies will, too.
Like your electricity trap in the arena? I ask.
Exactly. And see how well that worked out? says Beetee.
Well ... not really, I think. — Suzanne Collins

I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to stay right here and cause all kinds of trouble. — Suzanne Collins

Don't you see, Katniss, this will decide things. One way or the other. By the end of the day, they'll ether be dead or with us. It's ... it's more than we could hope for!
Well, that's a sunny view of our situation. — Suzanne Collins

We could do it, you know," Gale says quietly.
"What?" I ask.
"Leave the district. Run off. Live in the woods. You and I, we could make it," says Gale.
I don't know how to respond. This idea is so preposterous. — Suzanne Collins

Then I am pushing through the crowd, just as I did before. Trying to shout out her name above the roar. I'm almost there, almost to the barricade when I think she hears me. Because just for a moment, she catches sight of me, her lips form my name.
And that's when the rest of the parachutes go off. — Suzanne Collins

You have a ... remarkable memory."
"I remember everything about you. You're the one who wasn't paying attention. — Suzanne Collins

But just before they cut back to the main newscaster, I see the unmistakable flash of that same mockingjay's wing. The reporter has simply been incorporated into the old footage. She's not in District 13 at all. Which begs the question, What is? — Suzanne Collins

Katniss, the girl who was on fire! — Suzanne Collins

My death could, in fact, save him.
If it can't, no matter. It's enough to die of spite. To punish Haymitch, who, of all the people in this rotting world, has turned Peeta and me into pieces in his Games. I trusted him. I put what was precious in Haymitch's hands. And he has betrayed me. — Suzanne Collins

For there to be betrayal, there would have to have been trust first. — Suzanne Collins

Winning will make you famous. Losing means certain death. — Suzanne Collins

This was the door to both sustenance and sanity. And we were each other's key. — Suzanne Collins

Katniss....he's still trying to keep you alive. — Suzanne Collins

The little girl who was watching me kneels beside a motionless woman, screeching and trying to rouse her. Another wave of bullets slices across the chest of her yellow coat, staining it with red, knocking the girl onto her back. For a moment, looking at her tiny crumpled form, I lose my ability to form words. Gale prods me with his elbow. "Katniss?" "They're — Suzanne Collins

To this day, I can never shake the connection between this boy, Peeta Mellark, and the bread that gave me hope, and the dandelion that reminded me that I was not doomed. — Suzanne Collins

Instead,I watched myself get shot on tv — Suzanne Collins

As we curve around into the loop of the City Circle, I can see that a couple of other stylists have tried to steal Cinna and Portia's idea of illuminating their tributes. The electric-light-studded outfits from District 3, where they make electronics, at least make sense. But what are the livestock keepers from Distric 10, who are dressed as cows, doing with flaming belts? Broiling themselves? Pathetic. — Suzanne Collins

A furious Peeta hammers Haymitch with the atrocity he could become party to, but I can feel Haymitch watching me. This is the moment, then. When we find out exactly just how alike we are, and how much he truly understands me.
"I'm with the Mockingjay," he says. — Suzanne Collins

Firecracker Gale and dandelion Peeta are so different from each other that it's easy to imagine that a girl who would choose Gale is a completely different person than one who would choose Peeta. When people sit around debating who Katniss should choose, maybe what they're really debating actually is her identity - and the romance is just a proxy for that big, hard question about the ever-changing, unaware girl on fire. — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

No one will forget me. Not my look, not my name. Katniss. The girl who was on fire. — Suzanne Collins

Girl talk. That thing I've always been so bad at. — Suzanne Collins

I begin to fully understand the lengths to which people have gone to protect me. What I mean to the rebels. My on going struggle against the Capitol, which has so often felt like a solitary journey, has not been undertaken alone. I have had thousands upon thousands of people from the districts at my side. I was their Mockingjay long before I accepted the role. — Suzanne Collins

I'm never going to starve myself for a part. I don't want little girls to be like, 'Oh, I want to look like Katniss, so I'm going to skip dinner.' That's something I was really conscious of during training, when you're trying to get your body to look exactly right. I was trying to get my body to look fit and strong-not thin and underfed. — Jennifer Lawrence

Lunch makes me feel a bit better. — Suzanne Collins

Great. Now I have to go back and tell Haymitch I want an eighty-year-old and Nuts and Volts for my allies. He'll love that. — Suzanne Collins

You're alive, I whisper, pressing my palms against my cheeks, feeling the smile that's so wide it must look like a grimace. Peeta's alive. — Suzanne Collins

Stay with me.

Always. — Suzanne Collins

My name is Katniss Everdeen. Why am I not dead? I should be dead. — Suzanne Collins

Hey. I just wanted to make sure you got home," I say. "Katniss, I live three houses away from you," he says. — Suzanne Collins

They recognize me. Of course they recognize me. My face is uncovered and I'm standing here outside of District 12 pointing an arrow at them. Who else would I be? — Suzanne Collins

That the Careers have been better fed growing up is actually to their disadvantage,
because they don't know how to be hungry. Not like Rue and I do. — Suzanne Collins

I'll tell them how I survive it. I'll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in things because I'm afraid it could be taken away. That's when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I've seen someone do. It's like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than twenty years.
But there are much worse games to play. — Suzanne Collins

Peeta, you were supposed to wake me after a couple of hours," I say.
"For what? Nothing's going on here," he says. "Besides, I like watching you sleep. You don't scowl. Improves your looks a lot."
This, of course, brings on a scowl that makes him grin. — Suzanne Collins

Every hero must return home. Starks to Winterfell. Harry to Privet Drive. Luke Skywalker to Tattoine. Katniss to District twelve. The fun is in seeing how they return. — Pierce Brown

He looks down at his legs as if noticing his outfit for the first time. Then he whips off his hospital gown, leaving him in just his underwear. "Why? Do you find this" - he strikes a ridiculously provocative pose - "distracting? — Suzanne Collins

Whenever I'm with my mother, I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines. — Amy Tan

Apparently our portmanteau is trending on Twitter." He let out a self-deprecating laugh. "I didn't even know what a portmanteau was before Jukebox Hero. It's a mashup of our names, like Brangelina or Robsten. No idea what ours is
what do our names make?" He considered this a for a moment before shaking his head.
"It's probably awful," he decided. "Could be worse, though; I hear the portmanteau for the main characters in The Hunger Games is ... well, their names are Peeta and Katniss. I'll let you guys figure that one out on your own. — Andrea D. Smith

When I make a pretty good hook ( ... ) she gives me a toothless smile and an unintelligeble comment I think might be praise. — Suzanne Collins

If it's true, why do they leave us to live like this? With the hunger and the killings and the Games? And suddenly I hate this imaginary underground city of District 13 and those who sit by, watching us die. They're no better than the Capitol. — Suzanne Collins

Sometimes when I'm alone, I take the pearl from where it lives in my pocket and try to remember the boy with the bread, the strong arms that warded off nightmares on the train, the kisses in the arena. — Suzanne Collins

One more time? For the audience? he says. His voice isn't angry. It's hollow, which is worse. Already the boy with the bread is slipping away from me.
I take his hand, holding on tightly, preparing for the cameras, and dreading the moment when I will finally have to let go. — Suzanne Collins

I'm not Team Gale or Team Peeta. I'm Team Katniss ... the core story in the Hunger Games trilogy has less to do with who Katniss ends up with and more to do with who she is - because sometimes, in books and in life, it's not about the romance.
Sometimes, it's about the girl. — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Maybe the other tributes are out there beating one another senseless. Which would be fine.
- Katniss - — Suzanne Collins

The odds are never in our favour. — Suzanne Collins

Peeta" I said "Stay with me"
I heard him say one word before the drigs pulled me under, I realised later that what he said was 'always — Suzanne Collins

Katniss: I guess all those hours decorating cakes paid off.
Peeta: Yes, frosting. The final defence of the dying. (252) — Suzanne Collins

At some point, you have to stop running and turn around and face whoever wants you dead.The hard thing is finding the courage to do it. — Suzanne Collins

My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. My home is District 12. I was in the Hunger Games. I escaped. The Capitol hates me ... — Suzanne Collins

I'm on a frosting sailboat, tossed around by blue-green waves, the deck shifting beneath my feet. — Suzanne Collins

And when attacked by a Capitol-aligned soldier in District 2, she tells him that fighting in the Capitol's wars makes them all slaves: "It just goes around and around and who wins? Not us. Not the districts. Always the Capitol. But I'm tired of being a piece in their Games." Game theory is not about games. It's about politics and psychology, war and strategy. For Katniss Everdeen, it is life and death, and in the end, everyone in Panem comes to learn that the only way to truly win the game is not to play at all. — Leah Wilson

Peeta says it will be okay. We have each other. — Suzanne Collins

Each time I wake,I think, At last, this is over, but it isn't. — Suzanne Collins