John

“Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified. Friendship was witnessing another’s slow drip of miseries, and long bouts of boredom, and occasional triumphs. It was feeling honored by the privilege of getting to be present for another person’s most dismal moments, and knowing that you could be dismal around him in return.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“I’d rather extinguish the fire in hell and burn heaven, so that people could start loving God for no other reason than love.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

“But as he stood watching Carthage burn, Scipio reflected on the fate of this once great power. Overcome with emotion, he cried. His friend and mentor Polybius approached and asked why Scipio was crying.

"A glorious moment, Polybiius; but I have a dread foreboding that some day the same doom will be pronounced on my own country." Scipio then quoted a line from Homer: "A day will come when sacred Troy shall perish, And Priam and his people shall be slain."

Scipio knew that no power endures indefinitely, that all empires must fall.”
― Mike Duncan, The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic

“Do you think sometimes dreams are better left as dreams because they still hold possibility and wonder and there's no room for failure?" I don't hesitate, not even for a split second, because I believe it so fiercely. "No. I believe that dreams fuel life. And it's when you're chasing them that you're most alive. There's no reward in settling for the safety of status quo.”
― Kim Holden, Franco