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“The measure of a man is not whether he does the wrong thing. It is whether he accepts that he has.”

Fear is a lack of control, realised.

“A society cannot make a man a monster…. But it can give him the excuse to become one.”

“But men are still men. Strong and flawed and unpredictable, day to day. To weigh their potential without knowing their spirit…it cannot be done.”

Like any power, [Will] can be coerced. Fought for. Demanded. Requested under false pretences. But in the end, it is always the giving that is the important part. It can be reluctant. It can be because it is expected, pressured. It can even be a last resort against death itself.
The reasons never matter. It is always a choice being made. Always a personal responsibility.

…there is nothing that induces anxiety more than wanting to be hidden, and knowing you are about to be found.

“I once told you that it is how they change you. One compromise at a time. That every man has to find his line, and never cross it. Do you still believe that?”

“Death is only meaningless if it does not change us, Vis.”

“They ask something small of you. A thing you would prefer not to do, but it is not so terrible. You think you are working your way up, but in fact they are changing you. Moulding you into what they think you should be, one compromise at a time… I am just saying that in this place…each man has to find his line. Has to find it ahead of time and be resolved never to cross it.”

Quiet echoes with eternity; it thrums with the music of the world we’ve always secretly desired but have only just begun to imagine.

When Jesus gives us his peace, it means he gives us himself.
That doesn't exempt us from struggle here in the broken place; it promises us an alternate story singing in the midst of our darkness, a story that shows us a different way to live in the face of pain, that leads us to quiet in the midst of the storm and shows us the hard and holy road of hope.

Something held him back, though. A nagging sense in the back of his mind that making that choice, when it was expedient rather than necessary, was not a step that he could come back from.

“A man who believes is more dangerous than anything.”

I still own a smartphone. I live in the modern world. But I am walking ancient paths in learning the rhythms, the habits, the steps and cadence by which I may root not just my mind but my body, my wearied senses, and my breath in the homeland of quiet.

An echo of Jeremiah 6:16 + my remembrance of Andrew Peterson’s “You’ll Find Your Way” + Sarah’s gentle, beautiful prose closing chapter 1

“Sometimes it’s what’s right against what lets us win. Sometimes it’s what’s right against what lets us survive. But it is always a choice.”

“The only secrets a mind cannot give up are those it doesn’t know.”

"...a man needs to know what he believes before he can really know who he is."

"Just because El knows each choice I'm going to make—even if He created me knowing it's the choice I would make—doesn't mean it's not mine." He sighed. "But perhaps it's still not free will as you would think of it. That's the natural arrogance of man, sadly. We want to believe that free will means complete independence from the plans of our creator."

This ending wrecks me every single time. Without fail.

The penthouse was a wreck, but this time Harper had done nothing to cause it.

Here we GO! First time rereading the to-be-published version after reading it as a beta!

“True dreamers do not trust the dream. They trust the one who sends it.”

“Flesh and blood of Brendan, the storm grows…”
“Let us fill our sails,” the crowd replied.”

Rupert rose. “Be not far from me,” he answered. “Walk with me through the shadow of the grave. Tear this curtain of darkness. Make your face to shine upon our fallen, and give them peace.”

Be good. Be brave. I wasn’t.

Horace was still eating.

No chalanting to be had from John Horace Lawney VII, folks.

“Do they know?” he yelled, laughing. “The dragons follow a man still bound?” He stood slowly.

“[It] does not change the battlefield. It changes the stakes. It reminds us of all that we—and those we love—stand to lose in this storm. It gives us anger and grief. It deepens our resolve.”

“I wove them voices of holiness to curse Minerva and her kind, and to sing of the beauty that once was in the world and that would come again like morning.”

“First, the next step is always right in front of you. Pick your feet up and put your feet down.”

“We were in the dragon’s belly?”
“We are,” said Rupert, and he cracked a dark smile. “‘Shall I fear the dragon’s inners, where it keeps no armor to turn my blade?’ That from your famous ancestor, the Captain.”