Cynthia

“The sound of his deep sobs was enough to make a stone weep. It’s impossible to witness such open grief and not feel pity wrung from your heart... I couldn’t recall ever hearing a grown man cry this way. It made me think that no matter how big we grew or how old, there was always a child in us somewhere.”
― William Kent Krueger, This Tender Land

“Kindness is many things,” he said. “It is gentle. Tender. Tolerant. It is born of patience and faith. And sometimes, yes, it’s dangerous. Helping a wounded animal that’s likely to lash out, standing up for someone who’s being taunted by bullies... these things are all dangerous. But to try to understand another creature, to put ourselves in their place, to help them - even when it costs us - that shows strength, Sophie, not weakness.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Poisoned

“There are many ways to take a heart.
And the King of Crows uses all methods; he shies from none.
He’s happy to have it cut out all at once as I, the huntsman, did.
He’s happy to have it taken piece by piece, year by year, like a miser hoarding coins, with punishing silences, biting glances, and love served cold.
Poisonous words do the job, too. They are as sharp as knives and leave their victims hollow.”
― Jennifer Donnelly, Poisoned

“One need not be a chamber to be haunted,
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.

Far safer, of a midnight meeting
External ghost,
Than an interior confronting
That whiter host.

Far safer through an Abbey gallop,
The stones achase,
Than, moonless, one's own self encounter
In lonesome place.

Ourself, behind ourself concealed,
Should startle most;
Assassin, hid in our apartment,
Be horror's least.

The prudent carries a revolver,
He bolts the door,
O'erlooking a superior spectre
More near.”
― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson