# Matched
Author:: Ally Condie
## Highlights
> The hostess corrects me gently. “Not lucky, Cassia. There is no luck in the Society.” I nod. Of course. I should know better than to use such an archaic, inaccurate term. There’s only probability now. How likely something is to occur, or how unlikely. ([Location 229](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=229))
> That’s what the Society has given us: time. We live longer and better than any other citizens in the history of the world. And it’s thanks in large part to the Matching System, which produces physically and emotionally healthy offspring. ([Location 233](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=233))
> If you’ve always known how to look at someone, it’s strange when that directive changes. Xander has always been someone I could not have, and I have been the same for him. Now everything is different. ([Location 251](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=251))
> I knew the moment I saw it that it was the one I wanted. When I made my selection, the woman at the clothing distribution center smiled after she punched the number—seventy-three—into the computer. “That’s the one you were most likely to pick,” she said. “Your personal data indicated it, and so did general psychology. You’ve picked things outside of the majority in the past, and girls like their dresses to bring out their eyes.” ([Location 301](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=301))
> It is one of my favorites of all the Hundred Poems, the ones our Society chose to keep, back when they decided our culture was too cluttered. They created commissions to choose the hundred best of everything: Hundred Songs, Hundred Paintings, Hundred Stories, Hundred Poems. The rest were eliminated. Gone forever. For the best, the Society said, and everyone believed because it made sense. How can we appreciate anything fully when overwhelmed with too much? ([Location 353](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=353))
> We are like the microcards in the research library at Second School—each of us neatly tucked into a slot. ([Location 378](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=378))
> The government has computers that can do sorts much faster than we can, of course, but we’re still important. You never know when technology might fail. That’s what happened to the society before ours. Everyone had technology, too much of it, and the consequences were disastrous. ([Location 379](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=379))
> Nutrition specialists don’t need to know how to program air trains, for example, and programmers, in turn, don’t need to know how to prepare food. Such specialization keeps people from becoming overwhelmed. We don’t need to understand everything. And, as the Society reminds us, there’s a difference between knowledge and technology. Knowledge doesn’t fail us. ([Location 382](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=382))
> I sort and sort and sort until there is no data left for me. Everything is clear on my screen. I am the one who makes it go blank. ([Location 397](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=397))
> Then. For the first time I can remember, he touches me. His hand on my arm, fast and hot and gone before I know it. ([Location 1204](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=1204))
> The tracker spins below me, a machine named for the circular tracks where people used to compete. And named for what it does—tracking information about the person running on it. If you run too far, you might be a masochist, an anorexic, or another type, and you will have to see an Official of Psychology for diagnosis. If it’s determined that you are running hard because you genuinely like it then you can have an athletic permit. I have one. ([Location 1338](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=1338))
> I am glad that all is well, glad that I promised to let Em borrow the compact for her Banquet. For what is the point of having something lovely if you never share it? It would be like having a poem, a beautiful wild poem that no one else has, and burning it. ([Location 1788](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=1788))
> As I sort the numbers on the screen, making order out of chaos and detecting patterns, my heartbeat evens out. I stop trying to hold onto so many other things—the memory of Xander’s kiss, what my father has done, curiosity about Ky, worry about Em in the music hall, confusion about myself and how I am meant to be and who I am meant to love. I let it all go like a child with a handful of balloons on her First Day at First School. They float away from me, bright and dancing on the breeze, but I don’t look up and I don’t try to grab them back. Only when I hold onto nothing can I be the best, only then can I be what they expect me to be. ([Location 1809](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=1809))
> This is the difference between us. I live to sort; he knows how to create. ([Location 2006](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=2006))
> All these years he’s been so careful, but now he’s willing to take a chance. Because he’s found someone who wants to know. Someone he wants to tell. ([Location 2535](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=2535))
> There is a light in his eyes and I am the one who put it there. ([Location 2537](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=2537))
> There’s more to say, but we’re learning how to speak. Together we step out of the trees. Not touching. Not yet. ([Location 2538](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=2538))
> the statistics the Officials give us do not matter to me. I know there are many people who are happy and I am glad for them. But this is Ky. If he is the one person who falls by the wayside while the other ninety-nine are happy and fulfilled, that is not right with me anymore. I realize that I don’t care about the Officer pacing below or the other hikers among the trees or really anything else at all, and that is when I realize how dangerous this truly is. ([Location 2835](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=2835))
> Ky gives me three gifts for my birthday. A poem, a kiss, and the hopeless, beautiful belief that things might work. ([Location 3043](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=3043))
> It’s forbidden to grow food unless the Government has specifically requested it. They control the food; they control us. Some people know how to grow food, some know how to harvest it, some know how to process it; others know how to cook it. But none of us know how to do all of it. We could never survive on our own. ([Location 3494](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=3494))
> Lying in bed, my body and soul bruised and tired, I realize that the Officials are right. Once you want something, everything changes. Now I want everything. More and more and more. I want to pick my work position. Marry who I choose. Eat pie for breakfast and run down a real street instead of on a tracker. Go fast when I want and slow when I want. Decide which poems I want to read and what words I want to write. There is so much that I want. I feel it so much that I am water, a river of want, pooled in the shape of a girl named Cassia. Most of all I want Ky. ([Location 3529](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003YL4AOE&location=3529))