The Forgetting Quotes
"No one could take this many risks and never get caught."
"I’ve always known I would get caught. I just didn’t think it would be today."
"Balanced high inside the dome of the blue-violet sky, I force myself into stillness, into patience."
"My own book is inside, its tether worked through a hole in the cloth, tied to the braided belt at my waist."
"Our books are our sole identity after the Forgetting, the string that connects us to who we were before."
"I’m not going to be flogged. At least not today."
"I have to get home before my mother sees my empty bed."
"I am a lost girl, I think. Without being Lost."
"We know all this because there’s a chiseled plaque on the tower, helpfully marked 'Water Clock of Canaan,' complete with instructions. So we can’t forget."
"You are the glassblower’s son, and you’re going to have to trust me again, because I can’t tell you why I know."
"I wouldn’t have thought Liliya could slice my insides to ribbons, but she has done it, ruthless and precise, like a harvester with a scythe."
"We round the corner into the alley between the houses, the Clothesmaker’s in plain sight of my front door. I push the latch and my stomach drops."
"Gray lets my arms slide through his hands one at a time, until he only has me by one wrist."
"Genivee jumps up from her mattress like a seedling springing free of its pod."
"I feel a sudden sense of satisfaction at the thought of all the contraband hidden in the floor just below me."
"I hug my knees, trying to decide if I believe it."
"The loss of anger and adrenaline is leaving me with nothing."
"I run a hand over my messy hair, shiver slightly."
"Something will have to be done about that, too."
"The open door has completely covered Gray, though from my angle two feet are clearly visible beneath the bottom edge."
"It’s not today. Today is not the day I’m caught."
"The absurdity makes me smile, even though the thought of someone reading my book is horrifying."
"I’m much more afraid of you now than I ever was before."
"But sicknesses have a cause, and they can have a cure."
"It’s like I’ve just seen a mountain I have to climb."
"I don’t want to go home and tend and take care of things and endure."
"I’ve already learned that the door to the anteroom squeaks, alerting me every few minutes to Gretchen, or the Council watchers’ comings and goings."
"I am made of my memories. Without memories, they are nothing."
"Truth is not good, and truth is not bad. When we write truth, we write who we are."
"I think it’s funny how I know Genivee loves me the same amount she did at the last resting."
"You are the single most beautiful thing I have ever looked at in my life."
"They didn’t quarry it, Nadia. They created it."
"Money, we see, is like a symbol, a representation of something you want."
"What can you do in Canaan but be good at your trade or be on the Council? There’s nothing out there to go and get."
"Canaan is at war, between those who wish to mine this planet and those who wish to preserve it."
"It gives you something to go after, to stretch yourself for."
"They know that everything they are is about to disappear."
"The Forgetting is a privilege. A gift. A rebirth."
"Is the plant not better off? Will it not flourish? Isn’t it a much healthier plant for being pruned?"
"You listen to me. I do not want to forget you. Do you understand?"
"You are so irritating," Gray says. "You’re always saying one thing and doing the other, and I can’t understand you at all."
"I’m not her grandson," he says. He’s smiling, almost laughing.
"I’ve had those scars since before the last Forgetting, and I’ve never told a soul except my wife …"
"I don’t need to remember," she’d whispered. "I decided that a long time ago."
"My dear," she says, "I am one hundred and forty-eight."
"Let the past be gone, I thought. It felt true when we took Mother home to Hawking Street."
"I hate"—he says this word with vehemence—"that you remember it."