Stephen Williams

“That if they could not have a fierce joy in their struggle, then they were not truly free but governed by fear and doubt.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, The Strange Bird: A Borne Story

“Words are often almost useless in sentient affairs,” Leto said. Moneo held his breathing to a shallow minimum. The Lord can read thoughts! “Throughout our history,” Leto said, “the most potent use of words has been to round out some transcendental event, giving that event a place in the accepted chronicles, explaining the event in such a way that ever afterward we can use those words and say: “This is what it meant.” Moneo felt beaten down by these words, terrified by unspoken things they might make him think. “That’s how events get lost in history,” Leto said.”
― Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune

“She liked the feeling of being winnowed down, as if there had been too much of her before, that anything unnecessary had been taken away and what was left was pure.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, The Strange Bird: A Borne Story

“The people there had lived their little passage of time in this world, had become what they became, and now could be changed only by forgiveness and mercy. The misled, the disappointed, the sinners of all the sins, the hopeful, the faithful, the loving, the doubtful, the desperate, the grieved and the comforted, the young and the old, the bad and the good—all, sufferers unto death, had lain down there together. Some were there who had served the community better by dying than by living. Why I should have felt tender toward them all was not clear to me, but I did.”
― Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow