Kimberly

“My Ma, she wanted me to take up a trade. Make your life count for something, she said. Go where the Dwarves are. Now you just try and outwork a dwarf. Might as well dig your own grave!” Trapper tipped up his hat and scratched his greasy head. “I done like she said. I went to Thorbarten. Those Dwarves, they got more-n-enough busy work to go around. But them mountains—always loomin’ in the distance.” Trapper swiped the ragged hat from his head and held it over his heart. “I took to the mountains. Was the splendor—drew me in. Don’t regret it. Never will. But I do find myself wishin’ I had done more while I had the chance. Time is short for my kind. Not so with the Dwarves and the Gnomes.”
― C.A. Tedeschi, Fen and the Every Path

“but as the Hill Dwarves like to say, Hope is a hen that never lays.”
― C.A. Tedeschi, Fen and the Every Path

“When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me-it still sometimes happens-and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don't ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous-not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance. . . . That pure chance could be so generous and so kind. . . . That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space and the immensity of time. . . . That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me and it’s much more meaningful. . . . The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don't think I'll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful.”
― Ann Druyan

“Young people, especially young women, often ask me for advice. Here it is, valeat quantum. Do not undertake a scientific career in quest of fame or money. There are easier and better ways to reach them. Undertake it only if nothing else will satisfy you; for nothing else is probably what you will receive. Your reward will be the widening of the horizon as you climb. And if you achieve that reward you will ask no other.”
― Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin