The decisive moment in the defeat of upper class, capital-S, Society may have come when, in newspapers all over the nation, what used to be call the Society page was replaced by the Style section.

Not to like ice cream is to show oneself uninterested in food.

What distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, and what we do to make them come about.

Of the seven deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all.

In recompense, envy may be the subtlest - perhaps I should say the most insidious - of the seven deadly sins.

The pleasure of jogging and running is rather like that of wearing a fur coat in Texas in August: the true joy comes in being able to take the damn thing off.

I myself think anti-Semitism is about envy.

I am not merely a habitual quoter but an incorrigible one. I am, I may as well face it, more quotatious than an old stock-market ticker-tape machine, except that you can't unplug me.

A cat is the only domestic animal I know who toilet trains itself and does a damned impressive job of it.

I just know so many people who have six or seven foreign languages and have read everything and have musical training and they are still dorks

That wine drinking is more effete than beer drinking? No question.

… one can never go back, that one should not ever try to go back – that the essence of life is going forward. Life is really a One Way Street.

You can never have a successful end if you expect things to change as a result of miracles. Things will never change unless you take up the challenge to change them yourself.

Kissing girls is not like science, nor is it like sport. It is the third thing when you thought there were only two.

There is that American pastime known as "kidding" - with the result that everyone is ashamed and hangdog about showing the slightest enthusiasm or passion or sincere feeling about anything.

Earth knows no desolation. She smells regeneration in the moist breath of decay.

Our whole life is taken up with anxiety for personal security, with preparations for living, so that we really never live at all.

I have learned that frustration is allowed and talking it through is necessary.

I have the same group of friends I've had since I was three.

So now we all know," says Four, quietly, "that you are afraid of a short, skinny girl from Abnegation." His mouth curls into a smile.

The moon was a sharply defined crescent and the sky was perfectly clear. The stars shone with such fierce, contained brilliance that it seemed absurd to call the night dark.