Fletch

“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
― William Ernest Henley, Invictus

“But years ago I had known the river when it flowed through this now dry channel, so I could enliven its stony remains with the waters of memory.”
― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

“but”
― Cormac McCarthy, Outer Dark

“never”
― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories