Sam

“I want to tell you that it's horrible. I want to tell you that being suppressed makes every moment of existence a torment, because maybe that would help--but it would be a lie. In fact, the most horrible thing is how easy it is to slide into contentment, how hard it is to nourish anger or regret. If you lose the sense of smell, say, or taste, you'd grieve for it; but if you were born without that sense, you'd never miss it. That's how it was for me--the sense was gone, as though it has never been. For the first few years after suppression, I kept myself in misery by sheer effort of will, trying to imagine, every day, what it was that I had lost. But in the end, it became to much trouble. I gave in to the inevitable. I forgot.”
― Raphael Carter, The Fortunate Fall

“I prefer to speak in metaphor: That way, no logic can trap me, and no rule can bind me, and no fact can limit me or decide for me what’s possible.”
― Claire Oshetsky, Chouette

“I had recognized her. They had tried to tear her out, but she had lived in me--deep in my heart and secret, nameless and indescribable, yet never entirely gone. She had been a face in the window of every departing train, a form seen from the back on every crowded street, always just out of my sight, always turning away. And I had known her when she came to me, though I could not say it, and though the very thought had sent my mind skidding across the ice into unconsciousness.”
― Raphael Carter, The Fortunate Fall

“It is a small thing, yes, but on small things hinge the turning of the world. Very rarely does the opportunity come to stand up against torture and evildoing - or for justice and equality - in the grand gestures most of us dream of. On the other hand, the opportunity to stand up against a small injustice, or for a small truth or a small good, comes nearly every day.”
― Victoria Goddard, The Hands of the Emperor