“Reaching the stairs, I take hold of the railing and begin to swing myself up the steps when lightening flashed and a silhouette of a small boy came into view.”

“Quickly ducking, I fall to the ground while taking grip on the table. Hearing the axe get stuck into the wall on the other side, I slyly crane my neck to see what he was going to do next.”

“Failure is a trickster with a keen sense of irony and cunning. It takes great delight in tripping one when success is almost within reach”

“And exactly how does a miserable face help the war effort?" he asked sharply, his mood beginning to change. "Will a frown bring back the dead or fortify a town? If I allow myself to laugh in the face of misery, I rest my mind from the stress of it all, and then it'll work the better for you and your war. And if I'm really to be one of your advisers, Your Majesty, accept this piece of advise: Take happiness where and when you find it, because there is going to be precious little of it in the next few months!”

“Times like this were special. Memory builders. When something extraordinary happened to a person the kind of things remembered forever after it didn't have to be a life-changing event like a graduation or marriage or birth of a child. It more often was the small things. The sheer joy of summer sunlight on a fragrant flower. The giggle of a toddler. The brush of a lover's fingertips. And the person marks the moment with the flashing insight thinking... This is special. I should remember this”

“Now he knew it was worse. Fuck. Deck wasn’t done. “Lined up two hundred women, told me to choose the one for you, I’d choose the one back there. Settin’ myself up for what I’m gonna see again, gonna hold onto the knowledge that a year ago, my boy had one serious, fuckin’ bitch sleepin’ in his bed and he was sleepin’ in his guest room.”

“I remember wondering, within a year or two of taking my first my first steps, why only men sat to drink tea and converse, and why women were always busy. I reasoned that men were weak and needed rest.”