Ishmael

“Grief, my mother once told me, is love’s most honest expression. The last and hardest aspect of truly, truly caring for someone. She said it at her own mother’s funeral rites, tears in her eyes even as she tried to comfort a boy too young to understand why he was so sad, why his grandmother couldn’t be there anymore. She explained through choking sobs that without grief, love would be meaningless. Because it is impossible to truly love something that cannot be lost.”
― James Islington, The Strength of the Few

“A warrior must strive toward perfection, knowing full well that it will forever be unobtainable.”
― Raymond E. Feist, Servant of the Empire

“Life is a puzzle with no answer; a game with no rules; a maze with no exit, except death. And still we stumble on through the dark, creating form where there is none, seeing patterns that are not there.”
― Antonia Hodgson, The Raven Scholar

“Of all the unthinkable events in his life, the fact that the universe had put him beside this woman felt the most unlikely.”
― James S.A. Corey, The Mercy of Gods