Keivan

“If this was something I could cut out of myself with a knife,' he said, dropping her shoulders to bare his chest, as though exposing some treacherous organ, 'I would start cutting. I would carve it out if it killed me. But it’s not .' He shook his head, and finally his voice subsided. 'It’s been there all my life, since I was a tiny boy. This fear is part of every memory I have.”
― Brian Staveley, The Last Mortal Bond

“I felt like giving old Jane a buzz”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Brand stared in sick disbelief. He’d been sure among all those lads someone would speak, for they were honest enough. Or Hunnan would tell his part in it, for he was a respected master-at-arms. The king or the queen would draw out the truth, for they were wise and righteous. The gods wouldn’t allow such an injustice to pass. Someone would do something. Maybe, like him, they were all waiting for someone else to put things right.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Half the World

“Rulf laid a single arrow beside the body, and Koll reckoned he was struggling to keep back tears. ‘From nothing, to nothing,’ he croaked out.
Father Yarvi laid his withered hand on the old helmsman’s arm. ‘But what a journey in between.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Half a War