Steph

“That time when I was five or six and, playing a prank, leapt out at you from behind the hallway door, shouting, “Boom!” You screamed, face raked and twisted, then burst into sobs, clutched your chest as you leaned against the door, gasping. I stood bewildered, my toy army helmet tilted on my head. I was an American boy parroting what I saw on TV. I didn’t know that the war was still inside you, that there was a war to begin with, that once it enters you it never leaves—but merely echoes, a sound forming the face of your own son. Boom.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not. Time takes it all, bears it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again.”
― Stephen King, Coffey on the Mile

“[Lev Beniov:] "The imminence of death did not frighten me as much as it should have. I had been too afraid for too long; I was too exhausted, too hungry, too feel anything with proper intensity. But if my fear had diminished, it was not because my courage had increased. My body was so weak, so spent, that my legs trembled from the effort of standing upright. I could summon no great concern for anything, including the fate of Lev Beniov.”
― David Benioff, City of Thieves

“What am I going to say if I end up standing in front of God the Father Almighty and He asks me to explain why I did it? That it was my job? My job?”
― Stephen King, Coffey on the Mile