The Halfling's Gem (The Icewind Dale, #3; The Legend of Drizzt, #6)

by R.A. Salvatore

only with the honest knowledge that one day I will die can I ever truly begin to live.

For only when a person completely and honestly accepts the inevitability of death is he free of the fear of it.

This must be the greatest manifestation of that fear of death, the errant belief that we can somehow shape and decorate eternity itself, that we can curtain its windows and place its furniture in accordance with our own desperate desires.

I cannot control the truth of death, whatever my desperation. I can only make certain that those moments of my life I have remaining are as rich as they can be. —Drizzt Do’Urden

So when I meet people now, they do not have to earn my respect. I grant it, willingly and happily, expecting that in doing so I will come to learn even more about this beautiful world around me, that my experiences will widen.