Amber

“You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought, once. So did we all. And the truth is that as a man's real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do. . . .”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

“If we had the courage to love we would not so value these acts of war.”
― Jeanette Winterson, The Passion