Mockingjay Quotes
"How else could I orient myself in this sea of gray?"
"The Capitol’s firebombs obliterated the poor coal miners’ houses in the Seam, the shops in the town, even the Justice Building."
"I had to see it, though. So much so that I made it a condition of my cooperating with any of their plans."
"Right on the spot where Johanna Mason hit me with the coil of wire."
"My name is Katniss Everdeen. I am seventeen years old. My home is District 12."
"I killed you, I think as I pass a pile. And you. And you."
"My mother and Prim had set up a medical area for the injured and were attempting to treat them with whatever they could glean from the woods."
"To have escaped the endless hunger and oppression, the perilous mines, the lash of our final Head Peacekeeper, Romulus Thread."
"We can't fight one another, Caesar. There won't be enough of us left to keep going."
"I must now become the actual leader, the face, the voice, the embodiment of the revolution."
"And then we were very disposable—right, Plutarch?"
"I'll make Coin announce it in front of the entire population of Thirteen."
"Buttercup’s eyes reflect the faint glow of the safety light over the door as he lies in the crook of Prim’s arm, back on the job, protecting her from the night."
"If I’d had a weapon that could’ve stopped what I saw happen in Twelve…if I’d had a weapon that could have kept you out of the arena…I’d have used it."
"I feel the kind of relief that follows an actual solution."
"It’s just…I can’t breathe shut up here like a…I would get better, faster, if…I could hunt."
"Because you know who they are and what they do."
"I can't imagine actually saying it in real life—unless I was using a Capitol accent and making fun of it."
"I play it over and over in my head. What I could have done to keep him by my side without breaking the alliance. But nothing comes to me."
"We were in no position to launch a counterattack until recently."
"They’re using her, obviously. To whip up the rebels."
"And that, my friends, is how a revolution dies."
"What I’ve done in the past? I think of the trail of destruction in my wake—my knees weaken and I slide down to a sitting position."
"You can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?"
"It’s not some big mystery! The boy’s telling us we’re about to be attacked. Here. In Thirteen."
"I feel sick. Heartsick. And too tired for a day of production."
"I don’t think so. They were on the list here. I’m starting to get anxious, when my mother appears."
"I squeeze my lids shut tight for a moment, to track her as I would prey on a hunt."
"The idea that I’ve wounded the brute’s tiny cat feelings just invites further taunting."
"That’s great, Prim a doctor. She couldn’t even dream of it in 12."
"You don’t know how those District Two people ended up in the Nut."
"You’ll never be able to let him go. You’ll always feel wrong about being with me."
"They say it’s to cover the scent of blood from the mouth sores that will never heal."
"I take a few breaths to calm myself, step back, and lift Buttercup by the scruff of the neck."
"The Capitol’s fragile because it depends on the districts for everything."
"You could save a lot of lives, Katniss," Haymitch says finally.
"Let’s make this quick," says Haymitch. "You’re too exposed."
"I can’t. That’s the problem, isn’t it?" I lower my bow.
"I am," I say. "That’s why I killed Cato…and he killed Thresh…and he killed Clove…and she tried to kill me. It just goes around and around, and who wins? Not us. Not the districts. Always the Capitol."
"It’s a saying from thousands of years ago, written in a language called Latin about a place called Rome," he explains. "Panem et Circenses translates into ‘Bread and Circuses.’"
"We’re going to be as useful to the war effort as possible," Plutarch tells me.
"Don’t worry. I’ll be perfectly safe. I’m not even a real soldier. Just one of Plutarch’s televised puppets," I reassure her.
"That’s the one thing I think my head doctor might be right about. There’s no going back. So we might as well get on with things."
"No," I say. "That would be in direct violation of President Coin’s orders."
"I don’t know. We were under attack in Eight, for one thing. The hospital was under attack," I say.
"If anyone needs to go back, for whatever reason, now is the time," I say. "No questions asked, no hard feelings."
"It’s all right. You can smell it, but it’s not too strong."
"Fortunately, or we wouldn’t have dinner," says Gale. "Everybody grab a can."
"I’ll kill you before that happens," says Gale. "I promise."
"Katniss, please. Don’t you see, I want to be out of this?"
"Real," I say. "But people don’t need wings to survive."
"Because that’s what you and I do. Protect each other."
"The time draws near, although I could not give you exact hours and minutes."
"I vaguely wonder if I should be preparing for the event in some way, but nothing comes to mind."
"It’s so quiet, with the thick carpets and heavy tapestries soaking up the sound."
"I pull my left sleeve over my hand so that my skin won’t actually have to touch it."
"The colors are lovely, of course, but nothing says perfection like white."
"I refuse for this to be true. Some things even I can’t survive."
"The truth is, it benefits no one to live in a world where these things happen."
"No such luck. By evening, the blood clots, leaving me stiff and sore and sticky but alive."
"The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses."