Martha Brockenbrough Quotes

Why choose fear over love? In what world does that make sense?

The kiss: It felt like light rising through them. It was a memory and it was a promise, an enigma and a wonder. It was music. A conversation. A flight. A true story. And it was theirs.

When you miss someone, they leave a person-shaped hole behind in the world that nothing can ever fill. If you don't keep thinking about them, the edges of the hole shrink and fade. You can't let go or the last of them disappears.

And this love between Henry and Fora . . . at first, it was a small, uncertain thing, like the glow of the morning sunos the horizon. And then it was its own wild animal, bucking against the world and anything that threatened it, so hot it could burn and sometimes did. And then it was quiet, as quiet as a snowfall, covering everything, certain of its place, even as it was certain it could not last forever.

Someday. Just as it wasn't only something to be afraid of, it also was not something that existed only in the future. She and Henry had their someday moments. To see them all again, to hear them, to feel them without the blunting filter of fear: It was like nothing Flora could have imagined.
To die was not the worst thing that could have happened. The worst thing was that she'd almost missed the wonder of love.

In my opinion, anyone who claims to speak for God is probably talking out of the wrong end, anyway.

Game or no, she would someday die, as all living beings did. But that wasn't the tragedy. Nor was there tragedy in being a pawn. All souls are, if not of eternal beings, then as pawns of their own bodies. The game, whatever shape it takes, lasts only as long as the body holds out. The tragedy, every time, is choosing something other than love.

If the world made any sense, a new day of the week would be born, one that didn't require him to think about school, one in which he could lie on his back in the grass and look at the sky and imagine what it would be like to run away with her and do nothing but play music and eat fruit and walk down the street together for as long as they lived without feeling like the whole world would be staring and judging, or worse.

People were funny about things they couldn't see. If they couldn't see it, it wasn't there. Or at the least, it didn't affect them. But the world didn't work that way, did it? There were things all around that you couldn't see, and these things had power.

He closed the makeshift plywood door, sealing the space so Ethan would not have to hear any sounds from the outside world: not the voices of men, not the scream of steam engines as they arrived at the nearby station. The only sounds would be of their bodies breathing, of their clothes rustling, of skin moving against soft skin.

The shack was small and humble, but it was cozy and private, and lit with a light that did not seem to come entirely from the lantern.

Afterword, Ethan wept, and Love whispered things meant to make him feel safe. Were it possible, he would have traded his immortality to remain with this beautiful soul, to concentrate all that love on a human who needed it so.

If life didn't end... there would be no need for me to choose love in the face of death is the ultimate act of courage. I am the joy, but you are the meaning. Together, we make humanity more than it otherwise might have been.

We do not choose whom we love, he wrote. We can only choose how well.

She sent Death a thought, one she hoped would be her final gift. The Game means something only because we lose. That is your gift to humans. So thank you.

I'm sorry about what happened,' Love said.

Death squeezed his hand. 'Play as yourself. Not as me. Trust me one that.

Are you thirsty?" she asked.
"Like a camel," Henry said.
She led him to a chair by the window. Then she went to the kitchen, wishing she had something better than water to serve. She filled a glass.
"Are you hungry?" Food, she had.
"Like a camel that hasn't eaten anything in days."
"Ham or casserole?"
"No self-respecting camel eats casserole. It could contain a relative.

We do not choose whom we love...We can only choose how well.

We have all the time in the world.' Love found a record. He laid it on the player. The music started again, scratchy from age, but so sweet and beautiful and deep.
Someday.
And there, in the darkness, Love and Death and the ones inside of them danced until the song was done.
And then, when all around them was silent and still, they disappeared.

But don't you remember being a child?" he said. "How much simpler and clearer everything was? Sometimes I think they're smarter than any of us when it comes to love. They don't doubt it. Not for a second. And they don't doubt that they're loved in return. Something happens to us when we grow up. Misfortune tramples us. We forget how it feels to simply love without throwing the whole mess of life into the stew. We trade love for fear. I'm not willing to do that anymore.

Life is a temporary condition, Henry. And it's uncertain. That's why you have to seize chances when you find them. Pursue what you want. Take risks. Live, love...all of it. Every last one of us is going to die, but if we don't live as we truly want, if we're not with the one we want to be with, we're dead already.

There's no time to waste on regrets, Love said. There is only time to live the way you would have, had you known the stakes from the start.

She'd known it her whole life. It was the one thing she was certain of. That someday, everyone she loved would die. Everything she loved would crumble to ruin. It was the price of life. It was the price of love. It was the only ending for every true story.

This same system could condemn injustice, but instead it chooses to condemn something as simple and fundamental as the search for the second half. We are all born wanting this. Why does it matter what shape this second half takes, provided it is the thing both sides seek?