The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea Cycle, #2)

by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Earth is beautiful, and bright, and kindly, but that is not all. The Earth is also terrible, and dark, and cruel.

“To be reborn one must die, Tenar. It is not so hard as it looks from the other side.”

“Hospitality,” he said, “kindness to a stranger, that’s a very large thing.

She cried for the waste of her years in bondage to a useless evil. She wept in pain, because she was free. What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden for the spirit to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upward toward the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.