Tim O'Brien
- How to tell a true war story
A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue.
Glen Duncan
- What it's like being Lucifer
For a start, I'm in pain the whole time. Something considerably more diverting than lumbago or irritable bowel: there's a constant burning agony, all over, so to speak (that's quite bad) punctuated by irregular bursts of incandescent or meta-agony, as if my entire being is hosting its own private Armageddon (that's really very bad). These nukes, these ... supernovae catch me unawares.
Pablo Neruda
- Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines...
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her. To hear the immense night, still more immense without her. And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture. What does it matter that my love could not keep her? The night is shattered and she is not with me. This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance. My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. My sight searches for her as though to go to her. My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
Patrick Rothfuss
- Bast to Chronicler
Hear my words, manling. Do not mistake me for my mask. You see light dappling on the water and forget the deep, cold dark beneath. Listen. You cannot hurt me. You cannot run or hide. In this I will not be defied. I swear by all the salt in me; if you run counter to my desire, the remainder of your brief mortal span will be an orchestra of misery... And I swear by night sky and ever-moving moon; if you lead my master to despair, I will slit you open and splash around like a child in a mud puddle.
Band of Brothers
- Eugene Roe
Lord, grant that I shall never seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, or to be loved as to love with all my heart. With all my heart.
John Steakley
- Archon's Blessing from the novel Armor
He's the best of us. The best of our best, the best that each of us will ever build or ever love. So pray for this Guardian of our growth and choose him well, for if he be not truly blest, then our designs are surely frivolous and our future but a tragic waste of hope. Bless our best and adore for he doth bear our measure to the Cosmos.
