Para (wanderer)

“All my life,” she said, “I have been told ‘go’ and ‘come.’ I am told how I will live, and I am told how I must die. I must be a man’s servant and a mare for his pleasure, or I must hide myself behind walls and surrender my flesh to a cold, silent god. I would walk into the jaws of hell itself, if it were a path of my own choosing. I would rather die tomorrow in the forest than live a hundred years of the life appointed me. Please. Please let me help you.”
― Katherine Arden, The Bear and the Nightingale

“You are very easily exasperated, my dear. If you're a leaf trembling on a wide, deep river, relax and ride the current. It's always worked for me, I assure you.”
― Steven Erikson, Memories of Ice

“I am sloshing inside the bottle, clinging somewhat to the sides, because one of my ingredients is a thick viscous syrup.”
― Mariam Petrosyan, Дом, в котором...

“I have breathed on shadows, as one breathes into a soap bubble, to give it breadth and life. I did it because I had to, because human beings cannot live without history, and I have no history or tradition that is not located in a pale, aggressive body lying in the dirt, or hanging from a tree. How cruel it is to live in a community of two. I used to crouch on the floor, with my bedroom door open a crack so that I could peer out, and watch the lamplight on his motionless shoulders as he read, just to feel that another person was alive. I stole his papers in order to feel that I was not alone. I went through his cabinet. (I found nothing there but pencils, lamp oil, and thread.) I read all his books and tried, in my clumsy way, to debate them with him. What is the difference between a genius and a monster?”
― Sofia Samatar, The Winged Histories