Vesta Burington

“The Yaksha asked, 'What is the soul of man? Who is that friend bestowed on man by the gods? What is man's chief support? And what also is his chief refuge?' Yudhishthira answered, 'The son is a man's soul: the wife is the friend bestowed on man by the gods; the clouds are his chief support; and gift is his chief refuge.”
― Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, The Mahābhārata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

“The ordinary, utterly mundane reason behind the massacre makes it somehow more terrible, and far more depressing. The word 'senseless' springs to mind, and Idris thwarts it. It's what people always say. A senseless act of violence. A senseless murder. As if you could commit sensible murder.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

“Love doesn't save, it raises you up and makes you bigger, it lights you up from inside and carves out that light like wood in the forest. It nestles in the hollows of empty days, of thankless tasks, of useless hours, it doesn't drift along on golden rafts or sparkling rivers, it doesn't sing or shine and it never proclaims a thing. But at night, once the room's been swept and the embers covered over and the children are asleep -- at night between the sheets, with slow gazes, not moving or speaking -- at night, at last, when we're weary of our meager lives and the trivialities of our insignificant existance, each of us becomes the well where the other one can draw water ...”
― Muriel Barbery, The Life of Elves

“trading expedition”
― Gail Carson Levine, Ella Enchanted