T.J. Wallace

“In a voice not his own, as resonant in this cell as the reverberations in a bass drum, Iroki said, 'Take better care of my gift this time, child. You're going to need it.' The sense but not the sound of an immense belly laugh, tidal, oceans deep. And then as vast as the presence, somehow vaster, absence. The emptiness left was like a room stripped of its very air. One would weep for the loss if one could only breathe.”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Assassins of Thasalon

“He was of an age to think it childish, and an age to still want to do it.”
― Niall Williams, Time of the Child

“The noise of the street rose, many-voiced, in the music of congregation. Acquaintances were mutual and threw a wide ambit; besides neighbors and relations immediate, there were cousins, cousins of cousins, cousins of neighbors, cousins of neighbors' cousins, and their cousins, and their neighbors, all of which proved blood was a river without beginning or end.”
― Niall Williams, Time of the Child

“For what it was, was a thing absurd to say aloud, for at every minute and in every place on the planet it was a given. And yet, there it was, constricting his throat and drying his lips, the understanding that he was part of humanity.”
― Niall Williams, Time of the Child