Murray Lance

“If it’s the next storm, perhaps it’s going the other way.” “Goddess, I hope so,” said Dorothy, grimacing at her tea.
”
― Susan Rowland, The Swan Lake Murders

“Blinking hard, she watched two Toltec nobles disembark from the aircraft and rush up the steps. One of them argued with the priest who had
proclaimed her death sentence. The taller of the two, wearing what she
dimly registered as the uniform of the Generals Council, demanded the
keys to her shackles.
Securing them, he walked behind the post. A curious mixture of anticipation and confusion filled Helen. Although she did not know him, a tenuous sense of hope stirred deep within her simply because he was there with her.
She turned her head from side to side, trying to watch him as he
worked to free her. “Who are you, my lord? Why are you here?”
“You sent me a lecture not long ago about your duty as a healer,
Lieutenant,” he replied, on one knee behind her to unlock the manacles
around her ankles. “I am your father.”
― Candace L. Talmadge, Stoneslayer: Book One Scandal

“The institution represented an attempt to shift onto others — specifically, the victims — the burden of guilt, so that they were deprived of even the solace of innocence.”
― Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved

“There is the land
green and rising
and there is the heart
empty of longing,
with room at last
for silence.
 ”
― Don Hynes, Something Will Change Me: Poems of Hope, Healing, and Personal Transformation