Suzanne Collins Quotes

Poor Finnick. Is this the first time in your life you haven't looked pretty? I say. It must be. The sensation's completely new. How have you managed it all these years?

I squint down at my feet and see that my metal plate is surrounded by blue waves that lap up over my boots. Slowly I raise my eyes and take in the water spreading out in every direction. I can only form one clear thought.
This is no place for a girl on fire.

"I guess this is a bad time to mention I hung a dummy and painted Seneca Crane's name on it," I say.

Suddenly I remember how she volunteered to replace the young, hysterical woman in her district. It couldn't be because she thought she had any chance of winning. She did it to save the girl, just like I volunteered last year to save Prim. And I decide I want her on my team.

“When you’re on the chariot this time, no waving, no smiling. I just want you to look straight ahead, as if the entire audience is beneath your notice.”
“Finally something I’ll be good at,” I say.

Let them go, I tell myself. Say good-bye and forget them. I do my best, thinking of them one by one, releasing them like birds from the protective cages inside me, locking the doors against their return.

Life in District 12 isn’t really so different from life in the arena. 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.

No wonder I won the games. No decent person ever does.

Because sometimes things happen to people and they're not equipped to deal with them.
Like me, for instance. Right now.

Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, you have provided a spark that, left unattended, may grow to an inferno that destroys Panem.

Whatever problems anyone may have with the Capitol, believe me when I say that if it released its grip on the districts for even a short time, the entire system would collapse. [...] It must be very fragile, if a handful of berries can bring it down.

I think we'll make this whole situation a lot simpler by agreeing not to lie to each other, he says. What do you think? I think my tongue has frozen and speech will be impossible, so I surprise myself by answering back in a steady voice, Yes, I think that would save time.

A shiver goes through me when I think of the proximity of my mother and sister to this man who despises me. Will always despise me. Because I outsmarted his sadistic Hunger Games, made the Capitol look foolish, and consequently undermined his control.
All I was doing was trying to keep myself and Peeta alive. Any act of rebellion was purely coincidental. But when the Capitol decrees that only one tribute can live and you have the audacity to challenge it, I guess that’s a rebellion in itself.

You've got to go through it to get to the end of it.

I read The Hunger Games and didn't feel an urge to go on. It's not unlike [my novel] The Running Man, which is about a game where people are actually killed and people are watching: a satire on reality TV.