Ash

“Catalin Matía would smile whenever someone described great music as divine. To him, that was nonsense. Great music is all about weakness, uncertainty, mortality—what does Heaven know of these? In the same way, there is nothing transcendent about a violin. It is maple, spruce, ebony, an ounce or so of hide glue, some brushes of varnish. Perhaps this why the violin fits the human soul fit so perfectly—only such a simple, mortal object can hold its fragility and turn it into a prayer.”
― Ryka Aoki, Light From Uncommon Stars

“Spirits don’t tend to open new wounds in the people they haunt. It’s more in their nature to gouge at old ones.”
― A. K. M. Beach

“You're cold."

"Listen, Mister Damn-the-Torpedoes—"

"No. It was a compliment. Cold, ethical people save more lives than hotheads." He forced himself to look halfway relaxed. It didn't really work. Like it or not, he had an edge showing; he didn't think of himself as harmless, not at the moment, and it was visible somehow. "It’s a trait I’ve tried to cultivate myself, especially," a split second of distress, not quite a wince, "in the last three years. Can’t say I’m all that good at it.”
― Isabel Pelech, A Normil Day

“She did not mourn them because they strove for holiness, though many did. For some, Rovena was the only one to shed a tear at all. She cried because a banshee knows that no one should die unmourned, even if all that is mourned is the person they could have been instead. No matter how noble or base their spirit, she cried to heaven for mercy on all their souls in their next life. She begged for justice to be leavened with grace.”
― A K M Beach