Dreams of the Dying (The Twelfth World, #1)

by Nicolas Lietzau

The mind is a malleable thing. Soil, if you’re feeling poetic. Depending on the seed, anything will grow in it, from graceful gardens to idyllic meadows, from weedy forests to foggy swamps. Harmonious or chaotic, peaceful or perilous, healthy or ill—it’s all a matter of seeds.

Our minds shape reality ... that is why superstitious peasants burn witches, jealous lovers murder their beloved, and lonely veterans put nooses around their necks.

There is a myth that soldiers aren’t afraid when they charge into battle. It’s a lie: the fear is always there, worming through the pits of their stomachs and crawling over their shaking hands. Life or death depends on their ability to kill this fear and let that other beast take over, the one that fought, the one that maimed, the one that turned green boys into killers. The one that survived.

even if you try to feel compassion for things outside the reality of your own life, you’ll never care as much as you would if you were directly affected. It’s healthy, even, because if you did, your mind would break under the pressure.”

Nobody chooses to do or believe the wrong thing, Lysia. We’re all just products of our past and our circumstances.”

My point is that we all draw a line between the good we could do and the good we actually do.

you’d rather wallow in your own misery for the rest of your lives than get up and do something for a change ... And with every single day, that misery grows until you can’t help but turn it into anger. Because that’s so much easier, ain’t it? It’s so much easier to be angry instead of admitting there were chances, and you squandered them, it’s much easier to beat up yer wife and yer kid than to smack yerself for not gettin’ yer ass up when it mattered,