The 100: 15 Clarke Griffin Quotes We’ll Always Remember

When The 100 came to Earth as a group of teenagers facing long-term prison sentences on a space station, they were full of excitement and pithy one-liners. Clarke Griffin, however, was already focused on survival. By the final season of the series, Clarke had become the person everyone knew would do whatever terrible things she had to in order to make sure the human race survived.

Clarke began her journey in the series as the “princess” of The 100, so called because of her high standing as the daughter of the space station’s premiere doctor. Forced to grow up quickly, Clarke became the leader of her people and the first to try to defend them or broker peace for them. She’s had a lot of compelling speeches and quotable lines over the years.

Updated by Amanda Bruce On November 5th, 2020: The name Clarke Griffin is synonymous with The 100. She’s the voice that leads the audience’s point of view when the series begins, and she’s the one whose journey they watch come to an end in the finale. Clarke’s journey has so many memorable lines that it’s impossible to stop at just 10.

15 “I Bear It So They Don’t Have To.”

After Clarke, Bellamy, and Monty made the decision to irradiate Mount Weather, Clarke bore most of the responsibility. The Grounders dubbd her Wanheda, believing the action to be hers alone. She allowed everyone to hate her, fear her, or admire her as they saw fit.

When Clarke made the decision to leave camp because she’s floundering under the guilt of it all, Bellamy tried to make her understand that she didn’t act alone. Clarke told him, “I bear it so they don’t have to,” in response. It’s a sentiment that stayed with her until the end of the series, one she repeated when she took humanity’s final test, willing to be the bad go so no one else was punished.

14 “We Can Let the Bad Things That Happened To Us Define Who We Are. Or We Can Define Who We Are.”

By the sixth season of the series, Clarke and her people had twice faced the destruction of their planet – and their humanity even more than that. They’d done horrible things in the name of survival. She didn’t want that to stand in their way.

Clarke, to honor Monty and Harper, truly wanted humanity to “be better,” even if her own emotions frequently got in the way. She didn’t want everyone to think of themselves as horrible people who couldn’t build a new society, and when they met the inhabitants of Sanctum in the sixth season, she truly made an effort to help her people be better than they were before.

13 “Let’s Find out What the Three Most Dangerous Women On This Or Any Planet Are Up To.”

If there’s one thing the audience knows about Clarke (other than her tendency to make controversial choices), it’s that she had immense respect for the women around her. When she found out that the odd team of Echo, Octavia, and Diyoza were on Bardo, she was not just relieved to find out what happened to them, but curious as to what they’re planning.

Diyoza was considered a terrorist by Earth history standards because of the things she did for the causes she believed. Echo, a warrior and a spy, had always been able to do the dirty work of her people. Octavia, always caught between two worlds, was a vicious fighter, but a leader who wanted to do the right thing. Clarke likely saw herself in each of them, but also knew all three of them were more skilled than her, so this line was a reminder to the audience that she wasn’t going to take over their operation at Bardo, but figure out what’s going on.

12 “Pencils Down.”

Clarke wasn’t always someone who served up a pithy one-liner after performing a horrible act. That’s more Murphy’s, or even Octavia’s, style. When Clarke did something she knew others would see as reprehensible, she took it seriously. By the end of the series, however, she’s beyond the point of just doing what she feels like she has to. When Bill Cadogan destroyed Madi in the name of getting the final code for humanity’s test, Clarke wanted justice for her daughter, though the audience knew it was really revenge.

Clarke burst into the final test, shooting Cadogan point-blank before he could answer the question posed to him. Her line of, “pencils down,” was delivered cheekily, and though the audience knew this was probably going to go badly for her at that point, it’s still gratifying.

11 “Don’t Worry, Murphy. Hell Is Big Enough For Both Of Us.”

One of the most interesting parts of Clarke’s character was that she had no illusions about herself. Clarke was well aware that she did horrible things. She accepted that. Clarke also accepted that the consequences of her actions would eventually catch up with her.

The one person who really understood that about Clarke was John Murphy. Murphy and Clarke were both survivors. The difference, in the beginning, was that Murphy was more worried about saving himself and a select few friends while Clarke was concerned with saving everyone. Over time, Murphy and Clarke actually became closer and were most interested in saving the exact same people.

10 “I Don’t Want To Face Any Of It. All I Think About Every Day Is How We’re Going To Keep Everyone Alive…”

Clarke spent season one trying to get her fellow 100 to listen to her. They were more interested in listening to rebels like John Murphy and Bellamy Blake at the time, taking the chance to explore their freedom. Clarke was seen as someone from a higher social standing who just wanted to be in charge – even though that wasn’t what she wanted at all.

As she started to realize the horrible choices they would have to make to stay alive, she turned to Bellamy again and again for help, and that’s when she told him this line. Even as early as season one, Clarke was already primed to be the person making sure her people got to live on.

9 “You May Be The Chancellor, But I’m In Charge.”

When the adults of the Ark finally made their way to Earth, they thought the teens they sent ahead of them would simply fall back in line and everything would be just like it was before. When Abby Griffin became acting Chancellor of her people, she found that wasn’t the case.

Instead of looking to the adults for guidance, Abby discovered that the teens were already looking to Clarke. Clarke (as well as Bellamy) were most often the ones burdened with impossible decisions, and Clarke, despite her initial misgivings, was ready to carry the weight of those decisions, no matter what Abby wanted to do.

8 “You’re Watching Us, But You Haven’t Seen A Thing.”

In the same season two episode that Clarke shows her mother who’s really in charge, she also embraces that role with their enemies. “Coup de Grace” sees Clarke ready to go up against the Mountain Men thanks, in part, to a deal with the Grounder leader Lexa.

Clarke’s deal with Lexa and commitment to her people remind her that the leaders of Mount Weather doubt how effective outsiders can really be. Clarke knows that her people can get the upper hand in this confrontation, and she tells Emerson just that.

7 “I’d Pick You First.”

When Raven and Clarke begin their first interactions in the series, it’s through the lens of a love triangle that the viewers weren’t all that interested in. Clarke had developed feelings for Finn, who happened to be Raven’s boyfriend before he took the fall for her doing an illegal space walk and ended up in prison.

The two don’t get along when Raven finds out about Finn and Clarke’s relationship, but Clarke didn’t know anything about Raven before she showed up on Earth. Slowly, Clarke and Raven develop respect for one another’s skills, and a genuine friendship forms. Clarke telling Raven that she’d pick her first is the moment Clarke decides that sticking together – surviving – is more important than any romance.

6 “You Say Having Feelings Makes Me Weak, But You’re Weak For Hiding Them.”

As Clarke and Lexa prepared to go to war against the inhabitants of Mount Weather, the two had several heated conversations abut what war would mean for their people. While Lexa maintained a strong and stoic appearance, Clarke called her out on it.

Lexa believed emotions didn’t have a place in battle, but Clarke believed that their decisions were driven by their emotions. She didn’t believe that Lexa was actually able to ignore her feelings for the people she’d lost, and she also believed those feelings were what motivated her.

5 “I Tried To Be The Good Guy.”

This quote encapsulates Clarke’s character through the entire run of The 100. She tried time and again to do the right thing. Clarke wanted to do the most good for the most people, but she frequently got caught up in situations where that would be impossible.

Clarke lamented her attempts to do the right thing at the end of the second season to her mother. The idea of “good guys” became a gray area for the show as each group introduced believed they were the good guys, doing the right thing by their people, but always ended up hurting others.

4 “Life Should Be About More Than Just Surviving.”

Clarke made this remark to Lexa way back in season two. She was initially worried about the Grounder ways of fighting first and asking questions later. Clarke wanted her people to not just survive, but really live.

Lexa agreed with Clarke – to an extent. In the moment, she wanted to pursue a relationship with Clarke, but Clarke wouldn’t be ready to do that until much later. Following the events of season two, Clarke became incredibly focused on survival, and it would take her until Monty and Harper urged her to “do better” that she would go back to this way of thinking.

3 “You Don’t Ease Pain. You Overcome it.”

Of all of the adversaries Clarke went up against, ALIE was one of the toughest. That’s partly because she wasn’t a physical person Clarke could fight. ALIE was an artificial intelligence who had evolved to protect the human race by trapping their minds in the City of Light.

ALIE thought she was helping. She wanted to mask the pain people were feeling, taking away physical pain, like that in Raven’s leg, or emotional pain, like Jaha grieving the loss of his son. Clarke knew that the pain people felt was a necessary part of who they were.

2 “I Used To Think That Fighting Was What We Do. Now I’m Worried It’s What We Are.”

By the final season of the series, it was clear that Clarke was tired of fighting for survival. She was so sure in the earlier seasons that she and her people only fought out of necessity, but a conversation with Gaia revealed she wasn’t so sure anymore.

No matter what she did to try to achieve piece, no matter how she tried to put her own feelings aside, human beings always found a reason to disagree, and different factions would turn violent. As she tried to make a home for her people on Sanctum, it seemed that her plans were doomed to fall apart.

1 “You Take A Breath, Then Another. That’s It.”

The characters of The 100 had gone through so much by the time their final season rolled around that it seemed both impossible and exhausting. Russell questioned Clarke as to just how she could do it. Clarke’s answer was simple.

Much like her idea of overcoming pain, Clarke knew that she had to keep going, no matter how tired of the fight she was, or how difficult things became because she didn’t just have those original 100 teenagers to help anymore. She tried to help the entire human race despite her own personal tragedies. Clarke kept going because she had to.

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