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Inside me there is a coward who fears discomfort. That coward will offer solace in the form of excuses. But it is the coward who grooms a man for his defeats. The coward who makes him accept them because he is accustomed to finding a good reason to quit. The coward inside can only be killed one way.
You’re acting like you share a secret language all of a sudden.” “Isn’t that always the case with those who’ve read the same books?”
We achieve perfection first by acknowledging our failures. We increase understanding first by recognizing our ignorance.
“Mother, your inheritance was guilt. Father’s was surrender. Because of you, because of Father, mine is struggle. That is better than guilt. It is better than surrender. I do not blame you. I thank you. You never pretended the world wasn’t broken, even when a broken world favored you.” He takes my hands. “I think…if love is anything, it is truth. If life is anything, it is struggle.
He is my favorite smell, my favorite sound, my favorite sight. He will never know how much I love him because he does not remember the day Darrow and I conceived him, or the months I carried him inside me, or the minute he came into the world, the moment he said his first word or took his first step, or made me laugh for the first time. I remember all those things, and all the things about them.
That season of life is a haze to him, but when I die and reflect on my life, I know I will still believe that season was the meaning of mine.
“Worry is a spiral with death at its center,
Forgetting is essential to learning, just as exhaling is essential to breathing. Breathe out, then in. Find the self, then lose it once again. Thus, the path goes ever onward.
Where do you think I’d be without you? Without our friends? Dead in a ravine, that’s where. We hold each other up. We always have. That’s not weakness. That’s the only strength we’ve got.
In the cold prison of our minds, we are alone with our self-hatred, our doubts, and guilt. No one more than Sevro. A friend may reach through the bars and hold our hand, but they cannot open the door for us. Only the prisoner has the key. All I can do is remind him we’re waiting for him when he gets out.
