The One Tree (The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, #2)

by Stephen R. Donaldson

“we live, and strive, and seek to define the sense of our being. And it is good, for though we compose a scant blink across the eyes of eternity, yet while the blink lasts we choose what we will, create what we may, and share ourselves with each other as the stars did ere they were bereaved.

‘A sealed door admits no light.’ Will you not speak to me? No hand may open that door but your own.”

When the spirit is not altogether slain, great loss teaches men and women to desire greatly, both for themselves and for others.

“You’ve got it backward. You’re doing it to yourself. Punishing yourself for something you didn’t have the power to change. You can’t forgive yourself, so you refuse to forgive anybody else.”

“Freedom doesn’t mean you get to choose what happens to you. But you do get to choose how you react to it.

All power is an articulation of its wielder. There is no other source than life—and the desire of that life to express itself.