Michael Patrick

“Nothing? You call your theory nothing?”
“Weigh it in the balance with the freedom of one single human spirit,” he said, turning to her, “and which will weigh heavier? Can you tell? I cannot.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“There's always been a sliver of panic in him, deeply buried, when it comes to his daughter. A fear that he is no good as a father, that he is doing everything wrong. That he never quite understood the rules. All those Parisian mothers pushing buggies through the Jardin des Plantes,or holding up cardigans in department stores, it seemed to him that those women nodded to each other as they passed, as though each possessed some secret knowledge that he did not. How do you ever know for certain that you are doing the right thing? There is pride too, though. Pride that he has done it alone, that his daughter is so curious, so resilient. There is the humility of being a father to someone so powerful, as if he were only a narrow conduit for another, greater thing. That's how it feels right now, he thinks, kneeling beside her, rinsing her hair, as though his love for his daughter will outstrip the limits of his body. The walls could fall away, even the whole city, and brightness of that feeling would not wane.”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“It is my belief that the World (or, if you will, the House, since the two are for all practical purposes identical) wishes an Inhabitant for Itself to be a witness to its Beauty and the recipient of its Mercies.

If I leave, then the House will have no Inhabitant and how will I bear the thought of it Empty?”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“I just don't want to mess things up," she said. "What if we mess things up for him?"
"We will, though. No one's perfect. Everyone's carrying something that their parents would have done differently if they'd known. Or if they'd been better people. Or if things had just been different. That's all right. It's normal. Part of why I am what I am is all the bad choices my mom and dad made, and if they'd done differently, they'd still have made some mistakes somewhere along the line, and those would be part of me instead. They weren't perfect, and we aren't perfect."
"He is though."
"He is, isn't he?”
― James S. A. Corey