Youth and age, she thought. Beginnings and endings, connections and constancy. And, love.
Life’s a gift. It doesn’t always fit comfortably, but it’s precious. I wouldn’t have hurt you and your brothers by throwing mine away.
Youth and age, she thought. Beginnings and endings, connections and constancy. And, love. She snapped the embrace, but that wasn’t it. She snapped the glitter of tears, and still, no. Then Alison lowered her forehead to her grandmother’s, and even as her lips curved, a single tear slid down her cheek while the dress glowed and glittered behind them. Perfect. The blue butterfly.
Sundays were knowing absolutely nothing had to be done, and countless things could be.
Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Fire doesn’t only destroy, Rowan. Sometimes it creates. The best of it creates, and when love’s a fire, whether it’s bright or a steady glow, hot or warm, it creates. It makes you better than you were without it.
He didn’t expect to find her. I didn’t expect him to find her. She makes a difference, in him, in the book.
You start with earth and good intentions.
The guy – he’s an eager beaver – more eager, I’d say, because he wants to impress you. Sends you longing glances.” “He does not.” “Serious crush. I know just how he feels.” Now she snorted. “A crush is different from wanting to get a woman naked and onto any available flat surface.” “Oh. Guess I don’t know how he feels, then.
There are countless places absolutely amazing in Ireland, because it respects its history – its long and layered history – and those who came before, what they did, how they lived and died. That’s why you can feel them here, if you let yourself, and other places in the world are voids because in those places everything’s about what’s next, and nobody much cares about what was.
A determined man could build one hell of a blaze from one good spark.
It shows who we are. We’re making our lives, living our lives, both of us, Zane. Yeah, we’re okay. They couldn’t take who we are away from us. We’re who we are despite them.
Love isn’t finite, Raylan. It always makes more room.
It takes a bit of time, but why hurry through the day just to get to the next?
It’s odd that I never realized this is so much what I want. A home. A place where people I enjoy and who enjoy me will come when they like. Will feel comfortable and easy. Maybe it wasn’t solitude I was looking for after all when I so rashly flew to Ireland. It was what I’ve had over these last hours. Companionship, laughter, foolishness, and well, romance. I suppose I didn’t realize it because I never let myself really wish for it. Now without even the wish, here it is.
Organized religion has an unfortunate history of fostering violence.
A place it was – or was meant to be – for prayer and good works and contemplation. But there are always some, aren’t there, who believe what they believe is the only. And will do whatever it takes to force that belief on all. For me, those who would kill and burn and enslave in the name of a god, well, they don’t hear the god they claim to worship. Or the god is a false and cruel one.
Magic exists. Who can doubt it, when there are rainbows and wildflowers, the music of the wind and the silence of the stars?
We are people of the land, we are artists and craftsmen, storytellers, but we are also a world of laws. Most are not unlike the laws you know. To take a life, to take what is not yours or not given freely, to force another to lie with you, to neglect a child or animal. All of these acts cause harm, and our first law is to cause no harm.
If love isn’t stronger than pride, it isn’t love.