Daniel Villines

“She was at her truest, it seemed to her, in these tingling moments—these moments when, paradoxically, she was also at her most anonymous.”
― Sarah Waters, The Paying Guests

“Don Pepe was a Mexican man: a fatalist. He meant to impart much more than comfort. He meant that all good things would also end. All joy would crumble. And death would visit each and every one of them. He meant that regimes and ancient orders and cultures would all collapse. The world as we know it becomes a new world overnight.”
― Luis Alberto Urrea, Into the Beautiful North

“It was leap and die or live and be haunted by the ability to choose. Which when I think about it, might be one definition of consciousness. I pitied just about everybody.”
― Peter Heller, The Painter

“Man constantly prayed to God for peace, but peace never happened, so he decided that his god must really want war because the other side was sinful. Man invented and extolled virtues which could only be exemplified under conditions of war, like heroism and gallantry and honor, and he gave himself laurel wreaths or booty or medals for such things, thus rewarding himself for behaving well while sinning. He did it when he was a primitive, and he went on with it after he thought he was civilized.”
― Sheri S. Tepper, Raising the Stones