Petrik

“He never managed to articulate what it was he didn’t know, but I knew his meaning. I don’t know how much suffering is normal.
How much was ordinary, expected, the price we paid to live.
How much was created by us, needless.”
― Shen Tao, The Poet Empress

“I had not become so wicked in my heart that I had stopped believing people could change. If a gentle child could turn into a monster, I thought, then surely a monster could become gentle again.”
― Shen Tao, The Poet Empress

“Most men want to believe things that make them feel comforted, and they will ignore any difficult truth to keep believing.”
― Tad Williams, Into the Narrowdark

“It could be the greatest nation in the world, the most magnificent empire there ever existed. But if it could not keep its own children and fed, was it really something worth fighting to save?”
― Shen Tao, The Poet Empress