This novel is the conclusion of the Legend Trilogy, a series I’ve held very dear to my heart thanks to a good friends introduction to them. Marie Lu created a dystopian society which surprisingly differed entirely from the stereotyped teenage drama which is so prevalent today. This particular novel made me sob for several reasons and if you wish for things to remain spoil-free, I suggest you cease reading. I would highly recommend this series and this novel to any that enjoy a good thrill. The two different perspectives offered by June Iparis and Day Wing are unbelievably fine-tuned to each character’s personal voice. It’s truly astounding to have two vastly different perspectives throughout the novel. On a personal level, I feel as if I connect tremendously with June Iparis and perhaps that’s why I cherished these books so. Anyways, the quotes are below.

“I haven’t heard from her since. I don’t know if it’s because each of us is too hesitant to bother the other, too afraid that the other doesn’t want to talk, or maybe both of us are just too damn proud to be the one desperate enough to reach out." 

"What’s the point of keeping in touch with the girl you’re crazy about when you’re dying?”

“It’s better this way,” I tell myself for the hundredth time. And it is. By not seeing her for so long, the memory of how we’d originally met has grown dimmer.“

"When did I become so manipulative?”

“I haven’t seen or spoken to him for song long… and this is going to be how we reunite?”

“Sometimes I wish Day could hold me in his arms again and kiss me the way he did on that last night, so close that we could barely breathe, his lips soft against mine. But then I take back that wish. The thought is useless. It reminds me of loss.”

“But I was never as good a person as my brother.”

“My hands tremble at this momentary glimpse of his face - have I really forgotten how beautiful he is, how his eyes reflect something wild and untamed, free even in the midst of all this order and elegance?”

“There’s a familiar war of emotions in his expression that leaves me with a sick feeling - emotions that I know are desire for what we once had.”

“I remember the way he whispered I’m sorry against my lips. Now, as we stand three feet apart and stare at each other, I feel the full distance that comes with spending so much time apart, a moment filled with the electricity of a first meeting and the uncertainty of strangers.”

“‘Mom used to say that having three boys was kind of like having a pet tornado that talked back.’”

“There’s a coping mechanism I’ve started using recently where I pretend to retreat back into the shell of my heart and crawl out of my body, like I’m not really here and am instead observing the world from another person’s perspective.”

“Some things cannot be forgiven.”

“'I feel sorry for you,’ I say quietly. 'Because you’re so weak.’”

“'Sometimes, the sun sets earlier. Days don’t last forever, you know. But I’ll fight as hard as I can. I can promise you that.’”

“'I’d rather step away than be reminded every day that I only have a few months left to be with you.’”

“Tess shakes her head. 'I know you don’t love me that way. Don’t you think I know that by now?’ A note of bitterness enters her voice. 'But you don’t know how I feel about you. No one does.’”

“'When emotion fails, logic will save you.’”

“'You have to make decisions that break your heart, that hurt and deceive, that no one else will understand. It’s your duty.’”

“I can feel him holding back and I know that what he really wants to do is to lace his fingers through my hair and drown himself in me. But he doesn’t. He knows, as much as I do, that this isn’t real.”

“I grit my teeth at how weak I’ve become.”

“I’d never meant to get involved so deeply in any of this.”

“'You drive me insane, June,’ he murmurs against my hair. 'You’re the scariest, most clever, bravest person I know, and sometimes I can’t catch my breath because I’m trying so hard to keep up. There will never be another like you. You realize that, don’t you?’ I tilt my face up to see him. His eyes reflect the faint lights from the JumboTron, a rainbow of evening colors. 'Billions of people will come and go in this world,’ he says softly, 'but there will never be another like you.’”

“My heart twists until it threatens to break.”

“'I do so well until I see you in person and then everything changes again. I think I don’t care about you anymore, that things will be easier once you’re far away, and then all of a sudden I’m here again.’”

“'Why do I do this to myself?’”

“'Fear makes you stronger.’”

“Time heals all wounds. But not this one. Not yet.”

“June’s eyes are glossy with tears, but she manages to hold them in. Can one mistake really destroy a lifetime together? 'I don’t think there’s a way,’ she finally says.”

“This is no time to fall apart. I have never let emotions get the best of me and I’m not about to start now.”

“I feel like I’m hanging on by a thread. I guess that’s true in a pretty literal sense too - my headaches have been relentless today, and I’ve grown used to the perpetual pain pulsing at the back of my neck.”

“Our dance around each other always seems like it’s doomed to repeat itself over and over again.”

“I miss the days when things were straightforward instead of political, when I could easily sense the right path and what I should do.”

“If there’s one thing Anden excels at, even more than Day, it’s understanding where I’m coming from.”

“I have always been good at hiding my emotions.”

“Damn, every day it’s getting harder and harder to keep my chin up.”

“My headache stays with me, a constant, dull companion, reminding me of my ticking clock.”

“Let’s play. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

“The boy of light and laughter and life, of grief and fury and passion, the boy whose fate is intertwined with mine, forever and always.”

“I am so tired of fighting, so frustrated, angry, helpless.”

“Tell me there is still good in the world. Tell me there is still hope for all of us.”

“I always knew, on some level, that I wouldn’t live long. It’s simply not written in my stars.”

“'He’d love you even if it destroyed him.’”

“I need to step out of his life.”

“It’s time to let go.”

“Now I am sure of my feelings and it’s too late. So I fold the three words back into my heart, for his sake.”

“He’s already gone and his absence leaves a hollow, aching pain in my chest.”

“Day will move on and live his life. So will I. We will be okay. Someday, perhaps in the far and distant future, we’ll find each other again. Until then, I will remember him.”

“Until the day we meet again, I will hold you in my heart and protect you there, grieving what we never had, cherishing what we did. I wish you were here. I love you.”

“My thoughts wander briefly to Day. I wonder where he is, who he’s with, whether he’s happy. I really, sincerely, deeply hope that he is.”

“I see pieces of memories in his eyes. Pieces of us. They are broken, and scattered, but they are there, gradually coming together again at the sight of me. They are there.”

“But perhaps… perhaps… with time, with age, we can be friends again. We can heal. Perhaps we can return to that same place we once stood, when we were both young and innocent. Perhaps we really can meet like other people do, on some street one balmy evening where we catch the other’s eye and stop to introduce ourselves.”

“Perhaps there is such a thing as fate.”



Maybe our favorite quotations say more about us than about the stories and people we’re quoting.