Variant Quotes
"This isn’t one of those scare-you-straight schools, is it?"
"Maxfield is the pinnacle of educational research."
"I don’t care much for pedagogy and epistemology."
"I am definitely here to help you with orientation. That’s my job."
"We’re in this school so far away from everyone else—it’s like our own little society."
"We don’t have teachers, we don’t have counselors. We get lesson plans."
"This school is different from other schools."
"No one is supposed to talk to new students before they’ve had orientation."
"I’ve been here for about a year and a half. I don’t miss it. Like I said, things are good here."
"I shouldn’t have taken the scholarship."
"We learn a lot of interesting things, and it can really be a lot of fun."
"There are no adults in the school. And we can’t talk to anyone on the outside."
"There are some great people in this school."
"I think you’ll do very well at Maxfield."
"Detention is bad enough that you don’t want to end up there."
"The Society thinks that the only way we’re getting out of here is to play by the rules, roll over and do whatever Iceman tells us to."
"Not that we know of. Most get caught in the act. Others we just hear about."
"When the pine swung close to the wall my fingers gripped the branch tighter, as if my own body were unconsciously refusing to take such a suicidal leap."
"An air horn blared beneath me. They were calling for help."
"I heard a sharp pop like the sound of a gunshot. The branch below me had broken. I was falling."
"Trying to cross the wall is a detention-worthy offense," a male voice said.
"Resisting security," Laura continued, her face red and wild, "is also punishable."
"That is not true," she said. "Now, Dylan."
"And everyone here also knows what detention means. Do you really want that?"
"If we let him break the rules then everyone here is in danger. Do you want to go back to the way things were before the truce?"
"You can’t break it. People have tried, but it’s just bulletproof or something. Keeps us inside."
"Rats in a cage, Fish. Rats in a cage."
"But we don’t have to worry about it, because we’re going to win."
"This is the graveyard. I’m sorry. Someone should have told you."
"I’m getting out of here," I said, closing my eyes. "Not dating."
"Freedom to do what? Get a minimum-wage job and live in a run-down apartment—if you’re lucky?"
"But have you ever stopped to think about where you’d go if you left? You don’t have any family. No one here does."
"First, detention is death. We don’t know much about it. There’s a room downstairs for detention. You get put in the room for the night. In the morning, no one is left in there."
"No one ever escapes. People make it over the wall sometimes—the security guys have seen people do it. But they’re still caught."
"I don’t want friends and I don’t want food. I wanted to get out."
"It’s not that simple," she said. "I promise. I have a deal with Isaiah. I do new-student orientations, and I don’t do the other stuff."
"In the morning silence we heard the buzz and click even as far away as we were."
"I thought washing clothes was a good thing. Besides, they were splattered with red and blue paint. Not exactly camouflage."
"When we start running, just go as fast as you can, but stay at least twenty feet behind me."
"Man, she’s fast. Best player in the V’s. Probably the whole school."
"She really wants to be the super soldier, huh?"
"The Society has raised its flag! The timer starts now."
"Your choice of gangs. Have the V’s been everything you wanted?"
"Has anyone ever tried with a big group? All seventy-two of us? The guards can’t kill everyone."
"How many of us have to escape to make the deaths of the others worth it?"
"Everyone is angry when they first get here. Don’t do something you’d regret."
"We’re not going to cancel. Here, help me."
"This school is a society, and we all have our roles."
"All you ever talk about is escaping and trying to figure stupid things out."
"Complete horsecrap. Especially in here."
"I understand your concern about the slowness of the process. However, it is not in the interests of the experiment to instruct them in tactics. Our goal is to have them develop strategies on their own, not to see how well they can learn existing strategies."
"They gave me five million points," I said. "I’ve been trying to stockpile supplies in my room ever since. I don’t have much yet. I haven’t checked today, but what do you want to bet my balance is now zero?"
"We buried Jane as the sun was climbing the cold morning sky."
"You all plan to be the ones who live. It’s easy to write off the others, because you tell yourself that it won’t be you."
"We can go back to that," Isaiah said. "Or you can die. Those are your only choices. Because make no mistake: If you cross that wall, you’re dead. And it has nothing to do with me."
"We ventured outside slowly and somberly, nearly silent as we crossed the lawn—more than fifty of us now. The sky was growing dark, and puffs of frozen breath rose above us as we moved."
"We left Isaiah tied to a radiator, but the dozen or so staunch Society members who stayed with him were probably already untying him."
"You were outside the wall a lot more recently than I was."
"How far is it between that and the fence?"
"No one will get away. No one ever does."
"We weren’t testing you. We’re testing them."
"We’re not going to be your guinea pigs anymore."
"You can’t harm me. I’m stored on the mainframe."
"I thought you died. I thought we both did."