John

“Only in summer-phase is it carnivorous.”

If there was an award for understatement, I thought, the Tyr would trounce all competition.”
― C.S. Friedman, The Madness Season

“It is in the nature of man that he is antagonistic toward the others of his sex. Each man sees in another a potential competitor for the limited rewards of male success, and the hostility which arises between them is a part of the natural balance of human life.

It is possible, as in the case of father and son, that a closeness will arise between two men which threatens the functional hostility of each. It is the duty of society to provide an artificial means of encouraging the proper degree of antagonism.”
― C.S. Friedman

“All about us were people. Perhaps a hundred. Men. Experience had taught me that humans were cruelest when segregated by sex, and the cold feeling in the pit of my stomach became led. What had I let myself in for?”
― C.S. Friedman, The Madness Season

“Listen she said, everything ends, every single relationship you will ever have in your lifetime is going to end.... I'll die, you'll die, you'll get tired of each other. You don't always know how it's going to happen, but it is always going to happen. So stop trying to make everything permanent, it doesn't work. I want you to go out there and find some nice man you have no intention of spending the rest of your life with. You can be very, very happy with people you aren't going to marry.”
― Ann Patchett, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage