Brian Stabler

“What does nostalgia mean to a child? An abstraction. A standing stone waiting for them in the mist. Walk a path across some decades, any path you like, and the word will gather weight. It will come to you trailing maybes and might-have-beens. Nostalgia is a drug, a knife. Against young skin it carries a dull edge, but time will teach you that nostalgia cuts - and that it's a blade that we cannot keep from applying to our own flesh.”
― Mark Lawrence, The Book That Wouldn’t Burn

“Would it really take a vengeful god to bring them all to ruin, or was it simply a case of handing sharp knives to toddlers and waiting for the bleeding to start?”
― Mark Lawrence, The Book That Wouldn’t Burn

“All of us steal our lives. A little here, a little there. Some of it given, most of it taken. We wear ourselves like a coat of many patches, fraying at the edges, in constant repair. While we shore up one belief, we let go another. We are the stories we tell to ourselves. Nothing more.”
― Mark Lawrence, The Book That Wouldn’t Burn

“Hurts don't stop, but they fade into shadows of what they were. That's sad. That something so vital, something that bit you so deep, can be eroded by time into a story that almost seems like it happened to someone else. Any hurt.”
― Mark Lawrence, The Book That Wouldn’t Burn