Jo

“It’s only natural for adolescent goslings to be a little… moody. He just needs to be alone for a while. You’ve raised a wonderful son. I know he’ll come home soon. Try not to worry.” But Roz did worry. At least, she worried as much as a robot is capable of worrying. Brightbill had never run away—or flown away—and suddenly Roz was computing all the things that could go wrong. A violent storm. A broken wing. A predator. She had to find her son before something bad happened.”
― Peter Brown, The Wild Robot

“Do you know what happened to my birth mother?” Roz told Brightbill about that fateful day in spring. About how the rocks had fallen and only one egg had survived. About how she’d put the egg in a nest and carried it away. About how she’d watched over the egg until a tiny gosling hatched. Brightbill listened carefully until she finished. “Should I stop calling you Mama?” said the gosling. “I will still act like your mother, no matter what you call me,” said the robot. “I think I’ll keep calling you Mama.” “I think I will keep calling you son.” “We’re a strange family,” said Brightbill, with a little smile. “But I kind of like it that way.”
― Peter Brown, The Wild Robot

“For nothing is truly complete until the day it is at last destroyed.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages

“Yet the kandra identified themselves by gender—each was definitely a “he” or a “she.” Why? Did they choose arbitrarily, or did they actually know what they would have been, had they been born human rather than as a mistwraith?”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Hero of Ages