Ash

“Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew

“His mother had walked out years before, leaving his dad to cope with Adrian and his sister. This was long before the term “single-parent family” came into use; back then it was “a broken home,” and Adrian was the only person we knew who came from one. This ought to have given him a whole storetank of existential rage, but somehow it didn’t; he said he loved his mother and respected his father. Privately, the three of us examined his case and came up with a theory: that the key to a happy family life was for there not to be a family—or at least, not one living together. Having made this analysis, we envied Adrian the more.”
― Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending

“The ugliness of the world does not fade, nor are fear and grief made less by time, nor is any suffering forgotten. We are only made stronger by its blows.”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Ashes of Man

“A sudden premonition overcame me as I realized that here was yet another song the future would sing of the Sun Eater. How Hadrian Halfmortal waited utterly alone for a dozen years and more beside the crystal coffin of his lady! I have heard versions wherein I dealt with demons in the dark silence, with the very devil that adorned my father’s banners.”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Ashes of Man