Para (wanderer)

“Tell them they can be great someday, like us. Tell them they belong among us, no matter how we treat them. Tell them they must earn the respect which everyone else receives by default. Tell them there is a standard for acceptance; that standard is simply perfection. Kill those who scoff at those contradictions, and tell the rest that the dead deserved annihilation for their weakness and doubt. Then they'll break themselves trying for what they'll never achieve”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

“You are very easily exasperated, my dear. If you're a leaf trembling on a wide, deep river, relax and ride the current. It's always worked for me, I assure you.”
― Steven Erikson, Memories of Ice

“Mlad človek si daje opravka z lastnim razcvetanjem, napredovanjem in širjenjem meja: od otroške posteljice do sten sobe, hiše, parka, mesta, dežele, sveta; v moških letih pride čas sanjarjenja o še večjih stvareh. Okrog štiridesetega leta nastopi preobrat. Mladost se na vrhuncu svojih moči kot lok napeta muči sama s seboj. neke noči ali nekega jutra človek prestopi mejo, doseže vrhunec in naredi prvi korak navzdol, k smrti. Takrat se pojavi vprašanje: ali naj se spušča ponosno, z obrazom obrnjenim proti temi, ali naj se obrne nazaj, k minulemu, se slepi in pretvarja, da to ni tema, temveč samo soba, v kateri je ugasnila luč.”
― Olga Tokarczuk, Primeval and Other Times

“I have breathed on shadows, as one breathes into a soap bubble, to give it breadth and life. I did it because I had to, because human beings cannot live without history, and I have no history or tradition that is not located in a pale, aggressive body lying in the dirt, or hanging from a tree. How cruel it is to live in a community of two. I used to crouch on the floor, with my bedroom door open a crack so that I could peer out, and watch the lamplight on his motionless shoulders as he read, just to feel that another person was alive. I stole his papers in order to feel that I was not alone. I went through his cabinet. (I found nothing there but pencils, lamp oil, and thread.) I read all his books and tried, in my clumsy way, to debate them with him. What is the difference between a genius and a monster?”
― Sofia Samatar, The Winged Histories