Merlin Smallman

“Loneliness does not worry me; life is difficult enough, putting up with yourself and with your own habits.”
― Jorge Luis Borges

“If Jesus Christ was the being which those mythologists tell us he was, and that he came into this world to suffer, which is a word they sometimes use instead of 'to die,' the only real suffering he could have endured would have been 'to live.' His existence here was a state of exilement or transportation from heaven, and the way back to his original country was to die. — In fine, everything in this strange system is the reverse of what it pretends to be. It is the reverse of truth, and I become so tired of examining into its inconsistencies and absurdities, that I hasten to the conclusion of it, in order to proceed to something better.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

“Her husband's visage captivated her from the first moment she saw him step out of the royal carriage a hundred years ago. How could it not? Flaminius was utterly gorgeous. But once she fell in love with him, she became happily enslaved.”
― Therisa Peimer, Taming Flame

“I do not think I responded immediately, for it took me a moment or two to fully digest these words of Miss Kenton. Moreover, as you might appreciate, their implications were such as to provoke a certain degree of sorrow within me. Indeed- why should I not admit it? - at that moment, my heart was breaking.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day