caisha

“What is my sin, Blaise? Rudel was like that. A knife in the voice and in the thought behind. Quicksilver bright, insubstantial as a moon on water sometimes, then sharp and merciless and deadly as ... as an arrow dipped in syvaren. And the sharpness in his perceptions, as much as in anything else. A man from whom it was difficult to hide.

For the sin, the transgression, lay— and Rudel knew it, they both knew it — in his having given Blaise exactly what he wanted.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, A Song for Arbonne

“A great deal of what I say just leaves me open, I suppose, to a vast amount of misunderstanding. A great deal of what I say is based on an assumption which I hold and don’t always state. You know my fury about people is based precisely on the fact that I consider them to be responsible, moral creatures who so often do not act that way. But I am not surprised when they do. I am not that wretched a pessimist, and I wouldn’t sound the way I sound if I did not expect what I expect from human beings, if I didn’t have some ultimate faith and love, faith in them and love for them. You see, I am a human being too, and I have no right to stand in judgment of the world as though I am not a part of it. What I am demanding of other people is what I am demanding of myself.'
- James Baldwin”
― Margaret Mead, A Rap on Race

“But sometimes, unexpectedly, grief pounded over me in waves that left me gasping; and when the waves washed back, I found myself looking out over a brackish wreck which was illumined in a light so lucid, so heartsick and empty, that I could hardly remember that the world had ever been anything but dead.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“It was inside me. The more I sought it, the stronger it grew. It loved me. Loved me even if I couldn't, wouldn't, didn't love myself. Love me even if I hated. It set its tiny teeth in my soul and braced and held so that I couldn't crawl any further. And when I tried, a howl of despair burst from it, searing me, forbidding me to break so sacred trust.
It was Smithy.”
― Robin Hobb, Assassin's Apprentice