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“Wrinkles look like wisdom to the young.”
“Some people are born knowing what they’re for, and others take a little longer to work it out.
There are no prayers here, no thoughts of an afterlife. The reward for a good life is the living of it.
Compared to everybody else in the village, there’s the air of a first attempt about Seth, like nature thumbed a couple of eyes into the clay, then tossed him aside as a bad job.
“I’m going to miss you,” she says. “Don’t do it for too long,” he replies. “The more you look back, the more you miss what’s around you.
Survival in the morning, service in the afternoon, and celebration in the evening is their routine.
He’s been standing still for almost four minutes—an eternity for a young boy.
Increasingly though, the torment of having to wake up early seems like too high a price for the joy of staying awake late.
Her talent shines so brightly it makes everything else seem dull, and that’s a difficult thing not to resent.
Love is simply a matter of what people need and what they lack. It’s two broken things fitting together for a time.
“Why were they fighting?”
“We could always find a reason,” she replies. “We had different gods or different skin, or the fight had been going on so long we’d forgotten how to stop it. Somebody had something we needed, or we thought they were planning to hurt us. Often, it was as cynical as our leaders believing it would prolong their own power.”
everything we fear finds us eventually, so there’s no point trying to outrun it.
“You’re not afraid of anything.” “Of course I am,” replies Clara. “I just jump anyway.”
There’s such love between them that the air seems to ripple where they walk.
Women still had to worry about walking home by themselves late at night. Children were still snatched off the street.
I don’t miss the poverty or the anger or being afraid of every hate-peddling psychopath who might win an election.”
Children always ask this question. They’re more perceptive than adults. His curiosity will dim eventually. Adults are allergic to complication.
humanity does not easily abandon its pleasures, even the vile ones.
“Bad news hunts in packs, so work quickly. My suspicion is that our misfortunes are only just beginning.”
typical billionaire’s son, spoiled and spiteful, flailing through the world, mistaking notoriety for success.
Somebody must have truly hated her to have done this. They murdered her and kept on murdering her long after she was dead. They were digging for her soul, trying to kill her ghost.
Why would any species that dies so easily invent something as terrifying as murder?
She can’t imagine how hard that was for her, to be full of doubt in a world of conviction.
This is supposed to be a funeral. They should be singing and dancing and reminiscing.
She lost too much not to lose herself along the way.”
He sometimes wonders if his
disappointment in his daughter is magnified by his disappointment at himself.
The secrets on this island have teeth, and they don’t like being dragged into the light.”
She never learned how to read people, how to pick up the corner of a sentence and peer underneath.
“She was afraid,” says Seth softly. “Powerful people usually are,” replies Thea. “They have the most to lose.”
He was a billionaire’s son. He never had to learn to hide his emotions convincingly or make excuses for his behavior. The world did that for him.
“I’m not afraid to die, but I’ve always been terrified of other people dying.
It’s so bleak, she can feel her soul changing color to mirror it.
got every one of these from another human being, and not because their survival depended on it or because I was a threat to them. They hurt me for no other reason than because they wanted to.”
It should be impossible to love somebody this much, but time still slows down when I’m near her.
