Ash

“Nothing endures, nor lasts forever. Not stone, not empires, not life itself. Even the stars will one day burn down—as I have seen and know perhaps better than any other man. Even the darkness that comes after all will one day pass away to new light. This record, too, and this warm scribe—my hand—perhaps, will fade. The stones here on Colchis shall fall into the sea, and the sea dissolve to foam. The stars shall burn the worlds to ash, and cool themselves to cinders. All things fade. Fall. Shatter.”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Ashes of Man

“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

“He knew we were wounded. Wounded by war, wounded by the betrayal of our nation. Wounded twice, once in Vietnam, and again at home.”
― Diane Carlson Evans, Healing Wounds

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