Valentine Earl

“The craggy lines that made up the character in his face now seemed like scars of defeat, inflicted on him over time.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Elephant Tree

“brilliance on hold.” Poe”
― Lucian Bane, Seven Sons of Zion

“Now I don’t see anything evil in a desire to make money. But money is only a means to some end. If a man wants it for a personal purpose — to invest in his industry, to create, to study, to travel, to enjoy luxury — he’s completely moral. But the men who place money first go much beyond that. Personal luxury is a limited endeavor. What they want is ostentation: to show, to stun, to entertain, to impress others… At the price of their own self-respect. In the realm of greatest importance — the realm of values, of judgment, of spirit, of thought — they place others above self, in the exact manner which altruism demands. A truly selfish man cannot be affected by the approval of others. He doesn’t need it.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“And I realized that sure Indians were drunk and sad and displaced and crazy and mean but dang we knew how to laugh.

When it comes to death, we know that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing.

And so, laughing and crying, we said good-bye to my grandmother. And when we said good-bye to one grandmother, we said good-bye to all of them.

Each funeral was a funeral for all of us.

We lived and died together.

All of us laughed when they lowered my grandmother into the ground.

And all of us laughed when they covered her with dirt.

And all of us laughed as we walked and drove and rode our way back to our lonely, lonely houses.”
― Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian