Secrets Quotes in Divergent

Tris deals with her brother's secret in a classic, sisterly fashion: by feeling sick to her stomach. It's interesting that what really bothers Tris isn't the betrayal of the family—both kids left, after all. What really bothers her is how good he was at keeping that secret for so long.

In direct contrast to Tris and her secretive family, we have Christina and her crazy truthful Candor ways. Don't like someone? Feel free to tell them. Candor try to live a life of radical honesty—which kind of makes Christina the opposite of Tris in this one area. And also probably makes for some awkward Thanksgivings.

Tris is worried that her secret about being Divergent is pretty obvious to Four. Which is the downside to keeping secrets: you're always worried that someone is going to find out. So here, while Four seems to be supportive, Tris still feels like she can't share her full identity with him.

Tris is new to this whole friends thing and new to keeping secrets and new to Dauntless. So, this is going to go well, right? Notice how this secret gets lumped in with her competition issues (who gets the flag) and friendship issues (everybody loves Al—except Tris). Secrets are just another thing that separate Tris and her newfound friends.

What do you think Tris looks like from Peter's or Will's perspective? Because we get the story from Tris, we know she's not manipulating people to win the competition. Tris has got lots of secrets, but that's not one of them. But from Will's or Peter's point of view, she could be keeping lots of secrets: she's manipulating people, she's Divergent, she loves a vampire.

The downside to being in Tris's head (and knowing all of her terrible, terrible secrets) is that we don't know any other people's secrets—unless something happens that gives them a chance to tell Tris. But Four wasn't keeping a secret from Tris when he tried to help her; it's just they saw this from different points of view, so they didn't share the same information.

Here's one good thing about secrets: yes, they can drive a wedge between you and your friends (see above), but secrets can also drive a wedge between you and your enemies, which is handy. In this passage, Tris's secret is laid out clearly for us in the line about this making Tris feel sick to her stomach and strangle-happy. But all that is on the inside; on the outside, Tris is willing to lie and manipulate Jeanine to get what she wants.

Christina doesn't seem to have many secrets. For instance, when Will kisses her, the first thing Christina does is write a blog post about it. No, wait—the first thing she does is tell Tris. But the point is the same: Christina doesn't have secrets and she grew up in a place where there weren't lies and manipulation. That's either awesome or awkward or both all at once.

"It would wreck me" is a pretty strong statement. Like, if you imagine spilling your secrets, you might say "it would embarrass me" or "it would damage some of my friendships." But Tris rockets past anything like that and ends up with the word "wreck." She might be being a little melodramatic with that word, or maybe she thinks her secrets are really terrible things that would make people hate her. That's a problem with secrets: you don't know how people will react until you, you know, tell them.

Here's a hilarious group of lies and manipulations: (1) Jeanine's secret is mind control through the transmitters she secretly put into the Dauntless serum, and (2) Tris's secret is that she's not mind-controlled, which is emphasized by her italic commands to herself to stay still. And there's not even a break—these two secrets are in the same paragraph, which may show us how Tris's secret overpowers Jeanine's and Eric's secret.