Caroline Niziol

“Magic doesn’t require beauty,” she said. “Easy magic is pretty. Great magic asks that you trouble the waters. It requires a disruption, something new.”
― Leigh Bardugo, The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic

“So many shades and tones of gray—the gray that shone down from the sky, a ceaseless and endless gray that was so still. The mottled matte gray of the water, before the rain, broken by the curls of wavelets, the gray of the rain itself, prickles and ripples against the ocean’s surface. The silver gray of the real waves farther out, which came in and hit the bow as he guided the boat into them, rocking and the engine whining. The gray of something large and ponderous passing underneath him and making the boat rise as he tried to keep it still and motorless for those moments, holding his breath, life too close to dream for him to exhale.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Authority

“Even important biblical exhortations and commands become dislocated from their indicative, gospel habitat. Instead of the gospel giving us new thoughts, experiences, and a motivation for grateful obedience, we lodge the power of God in our own piety and programs.”
― Michael S. Horton, Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church

“The only thing that isn’t worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don’t.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations