40 Quotes from “Divergent” that didn’t make the film

Veronica Roth‘s inspiring, gripping yet heartbreaking Divergent series, is one of the most popular Dystopian Future series. And the franchise became even more popular when the film adaptions were released.

However, book fans were devastated that some of their favourite scenes, lines and conversations didn’t make the ever popular film adaption.

Here are 40 of the most popular and beautiful quotes from the first novel, Divergent, that never made it to the script.

1. She offers me her hand. “Here,” she says.
I raise an eyebrow at her hand, about to say that I don’t need help, but she adds, “I just … can’t do it unless someone drags me.”

This one is right at the start when Christina asks Tris to make her brave enough to jump off the train. This is what sparked their friendship and I wish moviegoers got to see that.

2. “Yeah. He’s …” I look over my shoulder at him. He is quiet, and remarkably self-possessed. But I wasn’t afraid that he would hurt me. “… definitely intimidating,” I finally say.

This is when Tris speaks of Four the first time she really feels affected by his presence. I wish we saw that.

3. “You aren’t going to be able to make me pretty, you know.” I close my eyes and hold still. She runs the tip of the pencil along the line of my eyelashes. I imagine standing before my family in these clothes, and my stomach twists like I might be sick.
“Who cares about pretty? I’m going for noticeable.”

We don’t see much beyond the obvious with Tris’ friendship with Christina, but in the book they help each other a lot. Here, Christina is giving her a makeover, helping her fit in with the Dauntless crowd. You can tell here that Christina doesn’t want Tris to be overlooked or underrated, she’s trying to get her noticed.

4. I stay close to Christina. I don’t want to admit it, not even to myself, but I feel calmer when I’m near her. If Peter tries to taunt me, she will defend me.

Not so much speech, but another moment when we could have saw Tris drawing strength from her friends.

5. “You’re not a coward just because you don’t want to hurt people,” I say.

The thing about Dauntless is that it tries to make you strong by forcing you to be brave, but in a fight, if you don’t win or don’t hurt the other you are said to be weak and a coward. Here, Tris reminds Al of other ways he can be brave. And in the same conversation we see Al’s feelings for Tris. Moviegoers miss out on all of that.

6. “What rank were you?” Peter asks Four.
I don’t expect Four to answer, but he looks levelly at Peter and says, “I was first.”

We get little glimpses of Four’s story in the book that we don’t get in the movie. This is a prime example of that.

7. “What makes you think I want to go home?” I ask, my cheeks hot. “You think I can’t handle this or something?”
“It’s not that.” He shakes his head. “It’s not that you can’t, it’s that you shouldn’t have to. You should be happy.”

Here Tris bumps into someone she knew from Abnegation who transferred to Amity. It’s a risky move for her to be talking to other initiates from other factions, but more than that, what he tells her is something profound.

8. I hear footsteps, and Four’s hands wrap around my wrists. I let him pry my hands from my eyes. He encloses one of my hands perfectly between two of his. The warmth of his skin overwhelms the ache in my fingers from holding the bars.
“You all right?” he asks, pressing our hands together.
“Yeah.” He starts to laugh. After a second, I laugh too.

You don’t see it in the film, but when they climb up the Ferris wheel, they accidentally turn it on in the process and Tris gets trapped under it before Four saves her and manages to turn it off. A scene missed that shows the first time Four saves her.

9. The flag hangs from a tree branch, high above my head. I reach for it, and so does Christina. “Come on, Tris,” she says. “You’re already the hero of the day. And you know you can’t reach it anyway.”
She gives me a patronizing look, the way people sometimes look at children when they act too adult, and snatches the flag from the branch.

In the film, you see Tris grabbing the flag and waving it in the air, but in the novel that is not how it works out.

10. “I ignore my fear,” he says. “When I make decisions, I pretend it doesn’t exist.”

When Four tells Tris this, she realises for the first time that there is a difference between being fearless and acting in spite of fear.

11. “You about done, Stiff?” asks Four.
I remember Al’s wide eyes and his quiet sobs at night and shake my head. “No.”
“Eyes open, then.” He taps the spot between his eyebrows.
…
“Come on, Stiff,” he says. “Let someone else stand there and take it.”
Why is he trying to goad me into giving up? Does he want me to fail? “Shut up, Four!”

This is when Four is throwing knifes at Tris, and when he can see Tris falter they have this exchange. At first she thinks he’s trying to get her to fail, but she later learns that right here is when he believes in her strength. When she seemed as though she was faltering, he was reminding her that she had to be brave for Al. That it’s when she’s acting selflessly that she is the most brave.

12. “Look at her,” says Molly, crossing her arms. She smirks at me. “She’s practically a child.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” says Drew. “She could be hiding something under that towel. Why don’t we look and see?”
Now.
I duck under Peter’s arm and dart toward the door. Something pinches and pulls at my towel as I walk away and then yanks sharply—Peter’s hand, gathering the fabric into his fist. The towel slips from my hand and the air is cold on my naked body.

We don’t really see how much Tris is tormented and picked on by other initiates in the film, this being a cruel and key scene that shows exactly that in the novel.

13. My mother stands alone near the railing with her hands clasped in front of her. She has never looked more out of place, with her gray slacks and gray jacket buttoned at the throat, her hair in its simple twist and her face placid. I start toward her, tears jumping into my eyes. She came. She came for me.

Another key scene missed in the film – in the book, the families of the transfer initiates have a chance to go to their son/daughters chosen faction to see them on Visiting Day. It was a key moment that Tris found her mother waiting to see her, but moviegoers would not know about it.

14. “Your daughter is doing well here. I’ve been overseeing her training.”
Since when does “overseeing” include throwing knives at me and scolding me at every opportunity?
“That’s good to hear,” she says. “I know a few things about Dauntless initiation, and I was worried about her.”

After watching the film you would have no idea that Four and Tris’s mother ever met, but in fact they did – and they had a whole conversation about Tris settling into Dauntless life. It’s then Tris realises that her mother was from Dauntless.

15. “Becoming fearless isn’t the point. That’s impossible. It’s learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it, that’s the point.”

One of my favourite quotes in the whole book, when Four is explaining to Tris what it really means to be brave.

16. “They were inconclusive,” I say softly.
“I thought as much.” She sighs. “Many children who are raised Abnegation receive that kind of result. We don’t know why. But you have to be very careful during the next stage of initiation, Beatrice. Stay in the middle of the pack, no matter what you do. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Do you understand?”

Tris’s mother looking out for her after recognising she was Divergent.

17. I have to forget myself.
“No,” I say. “You have to let the doctor take it out. Hear me? Let the doctor take it out. And breathe.”
“It hurts,” he sobs.
“I know it does.” Instead of my voice I hear my mother’s voice.

Another key scene of Peter’s brutality missed from the film. In the book, Peter stabs a boy in the eye with a butter knife in his sleep because he was at the top of the ranks.

18. “Do you know him well?” I ask. I am too curious; I always have been.
“Everyone knows Four,” she says. “We were initiates together. I was bad at fighting, so he taught me every night after everyone was asleep.” She scratches the back of her neck, her expression suddenly serious. “Nice of him.”

Another glimpse into Four’s past that’s missed in the movie.

19. “I don’t need you to …” I shake my head. My body is trembling and I feel so weak I’m not sure I can stand, but I have to try. I can’t be the only one who needs to be walked back to the dorms. Even if they don’t see me, they’ll find out, they’ll talk about me—
“Nonsense.”

After seeing how upset Tris was after the first day of stage two initiation, Four comforts her and takes her out the back door, knowing she needs him and refusing to accept otherwise. Another moment where he looks after her cut from the film.

20. “You belong here, you know that?” he says. “You belong with us. It’ll be over soon, so just hold on, okay?”

Seeing how hard this is for her and watching it take it’s toll on her, Four offers some words of encouragement to Tris.

21. “Do I look like I’ve been crying?” I say.
“Hmm.” He leans in close, narrowing his eyes like he’s inspecting my face. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. Even closer, so we would be breathing the same air—if I could remember to breathe. “No, Tris,” he says. A more serious look replaces his smile as he adds, “You look tough as nails.”

A nice conversation between Four and Tris where he can see her strength even when she’s weak that I wish we saw in the film.

22. “That’s my father!” I scream. “My father, you coward!”

Another act of cruelty from Peter and his gang, when they made up lies to a reporter that Tris’s dad had been abusing her and her brother.

23. “I’d ask you to hang out with us, but you’re not supposed to see me this way.” I am tempted to ask him why he wants me to hang out with him, but I suspect the answer has something to do with the bottle in his hand.
“What way?” I ask. “Drunk?”
“Yeah … well, no.” His voice softens. “Real, I guess.”

You forget that Four is only 18-years-old (even if he doesn’t look it in the film). This is pretty much the only scene where we see Four being just a young 18-year-old boy who has a crush on a girl and is out with his friends.

24. “I heard you got ranked first.”
“So you just wanted to congratulate me?” I smirk. “Well, thanks.”
“Someone should,” he says. “And I figured your friends might not be so congratulatory, since their ranks aren’t as high. So quit moping and come with us. I’m going to shoot a muffin off Marlene’s head.”

When Tris’ friends get jealous that she’s doing well and take a step back from her, her other friends are there to remind her that she’s doing really well and are there to congratulate her. We don’t see much of her other friends, but they play a key role in both this book and the following two.

25. “Peter would probably throw a party if I stopped breathing.”
“Well,” he says, “I would only go if there was cake.”

A hilarious moment between Four and Tris that’s always remembered by book fans but unfortunately not mentioned in the film.

26. “He wanted you to be the small, quiet girl from Abnegation,” Four says softly. “He hurt you because your strength made him feel weak. No other reason.”

Comforting words from Four to Tris after she got attacked that I was was included in the film.

27. “The others won’t be as jealous if you show some vulnerability. Even if it isn’t real.”
“You think I have to pretend to be vulnerable?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes, I do.”

Another moment where Four sees her strength, even if means he forgets that she can be weak.

28. “I never really said I was sorry,” Christina says quietly. “For taking the flag when you earned it. I don’t know what was wrong with me.”

Back to the moment when Christina took the flag from Tris, she later apologises for it – a big leap in Christina’s character and a part in what makes them friends again.

29. “Pick up the pace, Drew!” It’s a cruel joke, but it’s hard for me to fight off a smile. That is, until Four’s eyes shift to my arm around Will’s, and all the humor drains from them. His expression sends a chill through me. Is he … jealous?

Not only is it funny to see Four tormenting Drew after he, Peter and Al attacked Tris and Four beat him up, but you also start to see how much he likes Tris. It’s the first time we actually see him a little jealous over something trivial.

30. “Feel my heartbeat. Can you feel it?”
“Yes.”
“Feel how steady it is?”
“It’s fast.”
“Yes, well, that has nothing to do with the box.”

When Four’s arms are around her when they’re trapped in the small box in his fear landscape, she pretty much accidentally admits he makes her heart race. I wish this short conversation was in the film.

31. “You think my first instinct is to protect you. Because you’re small, or a girl, or a Stiff. But you’re wrong.” He leans his face close to mine and wraps his fingers around my chin. His hand smells like metal. When was the last time he held a gun, or a knife? My skin tingles at the point of contact, like he’s transmitting electricity through his skin.
“My first instinct is to push you until you break, just to see how hard I have to press,” he says, his fingers squeezing at the word “break.”

Not a very poignant scene, but one I would have liked to watch nonetheless.

32. “But you’re older than I am … Tobias.” He smiles at me.
“Yes, that whopping two-year gap really is insurmountable.”

When Four admits his feelings for Tris and she questions why he would be interested in her, especially because he’s older. But you forget that it’s only a two-year age gap.

33. “Did I hear you call me your boyfriend, Tris?”
“Not exactly.” I shrug. “Why? Do you want me to?”
He slips his hands over my neck and presses his thumbs under my chin, tilting my head back so his forehead meets mine. For a moment he stands there, his eyes closed, breathing my air. I feel the pulse in his fingertips. I feel the quickness of his breath. He seems nervous.
“Yes,” he finally says.

When they finally decide (amidst an argument) that they want to go exclusive. This was missing in the film.

34. “Can you be a girl for a few seconds?”
“I’m always a girl.” I frown.
“You know what I mean. Like a silly, annoying girl.”
I twirl my hair around my finger. “’Kay.”
She grins so wide I can see her back row of teeth. “Will kissed me.”

Again we don’t see much from Tris’ friends in the film, and most moviegoers will never know that Will and Christina fell for each other and became a couple. I wish that was in the and it would explain why Christina was so upset with Tris for killing Will.

35. “Fine.” He leans his face closer to mine, his eyes focusing on my chin, and my lips, and my nose. “I watched you because I like you.”

Ladies and gents, the exact moment when Four revealed his true feelings for Tris. Would have loved to have seen how it actually played on in the film.

36. “You’re afraid of me?”
“Not you,” I say. I bite my lip to keep it still. “Being with you … with anyone. I’ve never been involved with someone before, and … you’re older, and I don’t know what your expectations are, and …”
“Tris,” he says sternly, “I don’t know what delusion you’re operating under, but this is all new to me, too.”

When Four and Tris eventually clear up why he was in her fear landscape and Tris gets a few things off her chest. It would have been good for moviegoers to see that in fact both of them are vulnerable in their new relationship.

37. “Not all those Erudite articles were full of lies,” I say, narrowing my eyes at Marcus.
“What are you talking about?” Marcus says quietly. “I don’t know what you’ve been told, Beatrice, but—”
“The only reason I haven’t shot you yet is because he’s the one who should get to do it,” I say. “Stay away from him or I’ll decide I no longer care.”

An epic moment when Tris finally had a go at Marcus after what he did to Four. At the end of the film they all just seemed to get along, I would have loved to have seen this showdown.

38. “My parents,” I say. “They died today.” Even though I said it, and even though I know it’s true, it doesn’t feel real.
“They died for me,” I say. That feels important.
“They loved you,” he replies. “To them there was no better way to show you.”

With everything that happens in the last five minutes, we only briefly see Tris mourn her dead mother and father. At the end of the book, Four is there for her and reminds her of their love for her. She needed that.

39. “I might be in love with you.” He smiles a little. “I’m waiting until I’m sure to tell you, though.”
“That’s sensible of you,” I say, smiling too. “We should find some paper so you can make a list or a chart or something.”
I feel his laughter against my side, his nose sliding along my jaw, his lips pressing behind my ear. “Maybe I’m already sure,” he says, “and I just don’t want to frighten you.”
I laugh a little. “Then you should know better.”
“Fine,” he says. “Then I love you.”

When he tells Tris he loves her at the end of the book – one of my favourite moments between them that moviegoers will never know existed.