I was heavily influenced by my first attempt at a novel. I started a fantasy novel back in high school, and... well... it really sucked. It was a plotless, clichéd mess.

When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.

Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.

I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned

The world is a mess and I just need to rule it.

Half of seeming clever is keeping your mouth shut at the right times.

It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.

It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to be itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true.

If I seem to wander, if I seem to stray, remember that true stories seldom take the straightest way

There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.

Do not mistake me for my mask. You see light dappling on the water and forget the deep, cold dark beneath.

Nostalgia is a longing for your home.

Our career is a dream. I mean, we get to act, travel around the world, and meet cool people. What's not to love!

My mother got pregnant with me at the age of fifteen. This was '64, and unheard of at that time.

To some of us, hunger was more academic than real, but we must try to develop the ability to feel the urgency of such a situation.

Our number one responsibility is to protect Americans from terrorism, that’s our job, so being tough on terrorism is enormously important.

Each class preaches the importance of those virtues it need not exercise. The rich harp on the value of thrift, the idle grow eloquent over the dignity of labor.

You promised the moon, but I prefer Uranus.

That's very funny," says Peeta. Suddenly he lashes out at the glass in Haymitch's hand. It shatters on the floor, sending the bloodred liquid running toward the back of the train. "Only not to us.

Without even knowing, a person goes around scattering their heart. That's why if you're with a smiling person, you end up smiling with them.

For 'tis impossible Hate to return with love.