Manuela

“He had been born in Mussolini’s Italy. He had survived decades in the time-warp reality of the Lotus Casino. He’d emerged in modern times disoriented and culture-shocked, arrived at Camp Half-Blood, and promptly lost his sister Bianca to a dangerous quest. He had wandered the Labyrinth in self-imposed exile, being tortured and brainwashed by a malevolent ghost. He’d overcome everyone’s distrust and emerged from the Battle of Manhattan as a hero. He’d been captured by giants during the rise of Gaea. He’d wandered Tartarus alone and somehow managed to come out alive. And through it all, he’d struggled with his upbringing as a conservative Catholic Italian male from the 1930s and finally learned to accept himself as a young gay man. Anyone who could survive all that had more resilience than Stygian iron.”
― Rick Riordan, The Tower of Nero

“Peccato, non ricorderà la sua nascita, il suo primo respiro, il modo in cui l'avrei tenuta tra le braccia. I nostri sorrisi attorno a lei.
Non ricordiamo mai il periodo della vita in cui siamo più amati in assoluto. Forse, se così fosse, non avremmo bisogno di cercare l'amore per il resto della nostra vita.”
― Chiara Cecilia Santamaria, Quello che le mamme non dicono

“Before the gods, nothing matters save what you may create for yourself.”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, Lady of Avalon

“Micail nodded, looking down at her. “You seem so fragile, but sometimes I think you are the strongest of us all . . .”
“I am strong because we are together,” Tiriki murmured as he left her.
<...>
Were we disembodied spirits, she thought warmly, still I would know him.
<...>
The bond between them went beyond the senses of the flesh.”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Ancestors of Avalon