Peroikos

“She was like the revolutionist at fifty: not afraid of death, but bored by the probability of bad steaks and bad breaths and sitting up all night on windy barricades.”
― Sinclair Lewis, Main Street

“Did ye so? said Sir Meliagaunce, then I will abide by it: I love Queen Guenever, what will ye with it? I will prove and make good that she is the fairest lady and most of beauty in the world. As to that, said Sir Lamorak, I say nay thereto, for Queen Morgawse of Orkney, mother to Sir Gawaine, and his mother is the fairest queen and lady that beareth the life. That is not so, said Sir Meliagaunce, and that will I prove with my hands upon thy body. Will ye so? said Sir Lamorak, and in a better quarrel keep I not to fight. Then they departed either from other in great wrath.”
― Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table

“I don’t very much believe in blood,” said Samuel. “I think when a man finds good or bad in his children he is seeing only what he planted in them after they cleared the womb.” “You can’t make a race horse of a pig.” “No,” said Samuel, “but you can make a very fast pig.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“What do you think is going to happen?"
"What we make happen," says Joseph—again, with resolution.
"That's easy to say," says Frank.
"Not if you mean it," says Joseph.”
― James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk