Jarvis Macqueen

“We are all insects. Groping towards something terrible or divine.”
― Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle

“The books in Mo and Meggie's house were stacked under tables, on chairs, in the corners of the rooms. There where books in the kitchen and books in the lavatory. Books on the TV set and in the closet, small piles of books, tall piles of books, books thick and thin, books old and new. They welcomed Meggie down to breakfast with invitingly opened pages; they kept boredom at bay when the weather was bad. And sometimes you fall over them.”
― Cornelia Funke, Inkheart

“You never fail until you quit trying.”
― Tom Sechrist

“Every city has its gates, which need not be of stone. Nor need soldiers
be upon them or watchers before them. At first, when cities were jewels in a
dark and mysterious world, they tended to be round and they had protective
walls. To enter, one had to pass through gates, the reward for which was
shelter from the overwhelming forests and seas, the merciless and taxing
expanse of greens, whites, and blues - wild and free - that stopped at the
city walls.

In time, the ramparts became higher and the gates more massive, until they
simply disappeared and were replaced by barriers, subtler than stone, that
girded every city like a crown and held in its spirit. Some claim that the
barriers do not exist, and disparage them. Although they themselves can
penetrate the new walls with no effort, their spirits (which, also, they
claim do not exist) cannot, and are left like orphans around the periphery.

To enter a city intact it is necessary to pass through one of the new gates.
They are far more difficult to find than their solid predecessors, for they
are tests, mechanisms, devices, and implementations of justice.”
― Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale