Book detail: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games) is presented as a focused source page for quotations connected with this book, collection, transcript, or source record.
In this thrilling continuation of the Hunger Games series, readers are taken on a harrowing journey through the brutal and oppressive society of Panem. The story follows Katniss Everdeen, a young woman who has already survived the first Hunger Games, as she faces even greater challenges and dangers. The novel explores themes of resistance, love, and the human spirit in the face of adversity.
The quotes below use the same card format as the rest of the site, including topics, source notes, copy actions, image creation, and sharing controls.
Read more
“hey. I just wanted to make sure you got home," I say. "Katniss, I live three houses away from you," he says.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“It'd be better if he were easier to hate.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“The sensation inside me grows warmer and spreads out from my chest down through my body out along my arms and legs to the tips of my being. Instead of satisfying me the kisses have the opposite effect of making my need greater.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“I'm not prepared for Rue's family. Her parents, whose faces are still fresh with sorrow. Her fiver younger siblings, who resemble her so closely. The slight builds, the luminous brown eyes. They form a flock of small dark birds.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“Either you came in here a swimmer or you'd better be a really fast learner”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“Something inside me twists as I remember another voice. Rue. In the arena. When I gave her the leg of groosling. “Oh, I've never had a whole leg to myself before.” The disbelief of the chronically hungry.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“They hadn’t counted on the highly controlled jabberjay having the brains to adapt to the wild, to pass on its genetic code, to thrive in a new form. They hadn’t anticipated its will to live.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“Cinna just smiles. 'Had a damp morning?' 'You could wring me out,' I reply. Cinna puts his arm around my shoulder and leads me into lunch. ' Don't worry, I always channel my emotions into my work. That way I don't hurt anyone but myself.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“By the way, I know about the kiss." Then the door clicks shut behind him.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“In my mind, President Snow should be viewed in front of marble pillars hung with oversized flags. It's jarring to see him surrounded by the ordinary objects in the room. Like taking the lid off a pot and finding a fanged viper instead of stew.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“but it's not safe and I can feel him slipping away, so I just get out one more sentence. "Stay with me." As the tendrils of sleep syrup pull me down, I hear him whisper a word back but I don't catch it.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“I know. I was hoping," I say. "Exactly. Because you're desperate," says Haymitch. I don't argue because, of course, he's right.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“Orange? Like Effie's hair?" I say. "A bit more muted," he says. "More like sunset.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“No wonder I won the Games. NO decent person ever does.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“I don't have a talent, unless you count hunting illegally, which they don't. Or maybe singing, which I wouldn't do for the Capitol in a million years. My mother tried to interest me in a variety of suitable alternatives from a list Effie Trinket sent her. Cooking, flower arranging, playing the flute. None of them took, although Prim had a knack for all three. Finally Cinna stepped in and offered to help me develop my passion for designing clothes, which really required development since it was non-existent.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“And it’s all my fault, Gale. Because of what I did in the arena. If I had just killed myself with those berries, none of this would’ve happened. Peeta could have come home and lived, and everyone else would have been safe, too.” “Safe to do what?” he says in a gentler tone. “Starve? Work like slaves? Send their kids to the reaping? You haven’t hurt people – you’ve given them an opportunity. They just have to be brave enough to take it.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“So at least half the victors have instructed their mentors to request you as an ally. I know it can't be your sunny personality.” “They saw her shoot,” says Peeta with a smile. “Actually, I saw her shoot, for real, for the first time. I'm about to put in a formal request myself.” “You're that good?” Haymitch asks me.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“Hey, Finnick, come on in! We figured out how to make you pretty again!”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“Peeta rinses the pearl off in the water and hands it to me. “For you.” I hold it out on my palm and examine its iridescent surface in the sunlight. Yes, I will keep it. For the few remaining hours of my life I will keep it close. This last gift from Peeta. The only one I can really accept. Perhaps it will give me strength in the final moments.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“The air's warm with hopeful hints of spring in it. Spring would be a good time for an uprising, I think. Everyone feels less vulnerable once winter passes.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“Peeta looks at the glass again and puts it together. "You mean this will make me puke?" My prep team laughs hysterically. "Of course, so you can keep eating," says Octavia. "I've been in there twice already. Everyone does it, or else how would you have any fun at a feast?”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“If my holding out those berries was an act of temporary insanity, then those people will embrace insanity too.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“I never see these things coming. They happen too fast. One second you're proposing an escape plan and the next...”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“Peeta crouches down on the other side of her and strokes her hair. When he begins to speak in a soft voice, it seems almost nonsensical, but the words aren’t for me. “With my paint box at home, I can make every color imaginable. Pink. As pale as a baby’s skin. Or as deep as rhubarb. Green like spring grass. Blue that shimmers like ice on water.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“Just the sound of his voice twists my stomach into a knot of unpleasant emotions like guilt, sadness and fear. And longing. I might as well admit there’s some of that too.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“And then, when he’s been underwater so long I feel certain he’s drowned, his head pops up right next to me and I start. “Don’t do that,” I say. “What? Come up or stay under?” he says. “Either. Neither. Whatever”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“I don't know what I expected from my first meeting with Peeta after the announcement. A few hugs and kisses. A little comfort maybe. Not this. I turn to Haymitch. "Don't worry, I'll get you more liquor.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“I don't like self-righteous people," I say. "What's to like?" says Haymitch, who begins sucking the dregs out of the empty bottles.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“I thought he wanted it, anyway," I say. "Not like this," Haymitch says. "He wanted it to be real.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“Shame isn't a strong enough word for what I feel. "You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, you know," Haymitch says.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“This is no place for a girl on fire.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“Our romance became a key strategy for our survival in the arena. Only it wasn't just a strategy for Peeta.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“But the only thing that distracts me from my current situation is fantasizing about killing President Snow.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“Come on and eat with him. I promise, I won't let him kiss you again.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to stay right here and cause all kinds of trouble.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“aren't they the very reason I have to try to fight? Because what has been done to them is so wrong, so beyond justification, so evil that there is no choice? Because no one has the right to treat them as they have been treated?”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“That's when I hear the scream. So full of fear and pain it ices my blood. And so familiar. I drop the spile, forget where I am or what lies ahead, only know I must reach her, protect her. I run wildly in the direction of the voice, heedless of danger, ripping through vines and branches, through anything that keeps me from reaching her. From reaching my little sister.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“Katniss, got that spile?" Finnick asks, snapping me back to reality.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“What do you think?" he asks. "I hate them," I say. I can almost smell the blood, the dirt, the unnatural breath of the mutt. "All I do is go around trying to forget the arena and you've brought it back to life. How do you remember these things so exactly?" "I see them every night," he says.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“Just give him the medicine!" I scream at her. "Give it to him! Who are you, anyway, to decide how much pain he can stand!”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“It starts at midnight.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“I wish she was dead,' he says. 'I wish they were all dead and we were, too. It would be best.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“How much better my life has been for knowing him. For loving him, even if it's only in the limited way that I can manage. But I never get the chance.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“I'd begun to think that he'd given up on me in the weeks that had passed. Or that he no longer cared about me. Hated me even. And the idea of losing him forever, my best friend, the only person I'd ever trusted with my secrets, was so painful I couldn't stand it.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“I stand there, feeling broken and small, thousands of eyes trained on me.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“Desperate, yet no longer alone after that day, because we'd found each other.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“Mutually counting on each other, watching each other's backs, forcing each other to be brave.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“And then it happens. Up and down the row, the victors begin to join hands. Some right away, like the morphlings, or Wiress and Beetee. Others unsure but caught up in the demands of those around them, like Brutus and Enobaria. By the time the anthem plays its final strains, all twenty-four of us stand in one unbroken line in what must be the first public show of unity among the districts since the Dark Days. You can see the realization of this as the screens begin to pop into blackness. It's too late, though. In the confusion they didn't cut us off in time. Everyone has seen.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“They recognize me. Of course they recognize me. My face is uncovered and I'm standing here outside of District 12 pointing an arrow at them. Who else would I be?”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
“Do i really want him dead? What i want... what i want is to have him back.”
Source: Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)