Em

“Our friends have left us
Perhaps we never saw them, perhaps
we encountered them when sleep
still brought us very close to the breathing wave
perhaps we search for them because we search for the other life,
beyond the statues.”
― Giorgos Seferis

“They may be called the Palace Guard, the City Guard, or the Patrol. Whatever the name, their purpose in any work of heroic fantasy is identical: it is, round about Chapter Three (or ten minutes into the film) to rush into the room, attack the hero one at a time, and be slaughtered. No one ever asks them if they want to.
This book is dedicated to those fine men.”
― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

“Without war there are no heroes."

"What harm would that be?"

"Oh, Lavinia, what a woman's question that is.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, Lavinia

“If on a winter's night a traveler, outside the town of Malbork, leaning from the steep slope without fear of wind or vertigo, looks down in the gathering shadow in a network of lines that enlace, in a network of lines that intersect, on the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon around an empty grave-What story down there awaits its end?-he asks, anxious to hear the story.”
― Italo Calvino