Frances

“But some of our choices are bigger, not massive, but bigger, and they have an impact on the people around us: shall I help that old lady with her shopping, or not? Shall I say something kind to you when I meet you? Shall I laugh at your ideas, shall I walk through the world gently, or shall I push everyone aside?”
― Marcus Sedgwick, White Crow

“Don't follow after me, Tian-Tian." She caresses my face, but her fingers crumble into smoke before I can cherish their warmth. "There's nothing here. It's not a solution. Not an escape. I'm not free. I'm just gone.”
― Xiran Jay Zhao, Iron Widow

“never unlearned to respond to attack by turning to stone. Looking back now, I wonder how many of the problems in my marriage were due to . . . well.” She smiled, and blinked. “My mother was wrong, I think. She certainly ignored her own pain for far too long. But I’m stone all the way through, now, and it’s too late.” Miles bit his knuckles, hard. Right. So at the dawn of puberty, she’d learned no one would defend her, she could not defend herself, and the only way to survive was to pretend to be dead. Great.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, Komarr

“Then Beren woke and opened eyes,
and rose and cried: 'Neath other skies,
in lands more awful and unknown,
I wandered long, methought, alone
to the deep shadow where the dead dwell;
but ever a voice that I knew well,
like bells, like viols, like harps, like birds,
like music moving without words,
called me, called me through the night,
enchanted drew me back to light!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, Beren and Lúthien