“Imagine it from here everything you say in front of you — lake, trees, the mountains to the edge of the horizon — was water. Endless blue water of waves in constant motion. That’s what the ocean looks like. The girl frowned. I can’t imagine it, she said. No, said the man. You can’t. Not until you see it. And hear it. And smell it.” ImaginationOcean Book:The Bear Source: The Bear
“But I miss whom I once could touch, as all must do when we make our way through whatever forest or wood it is in which we travel or are raised. This does not mean the man is lost or has disappeared forever. For although he no longer walks beside you, he still remains in the time and place of memory and this is where he will appear again and again, as often as you will seek him. Not only in those places where he has always been but where he could not be then yet will be now.” LoveDeathMemoriesLossDying Book:The Bear Source: The Bear
“I prayed for death so as not to live in madness.” DeathMadnessSanity Book:The Sojourn Source: The Sojourn
“The Northwestern Carpathians, in which I was raised, were a hard place, as unforgiving as the people who lived there, but the Alpine landscape into which Zlee and I were sent that early winter seemed a glimpse of what the surface of the earth looked and felt and acted like when there were no maps or borders, no rifles or artillery, no men or wars to claim possession of land, and snow and rock alone parried in a match of millennial slowness so that time meant nothing, and death meant nothing, for what life there was gave in to the forces of nature surrounding and accepted its fate to play what role was handed down in the sidereal march of seasons capable of crushing in an instant what armies might--millennia later--be foolish enough to assemble on it heights. And yet there we were, ordered to march ourselves, for God, not nature, was with us now, and God would deliver us, in this world and next, when the time came for that.” War Book:The Sojourn Source: The Sojourn
“I had never seen anyone fight and I had never been taught to defend myself. But I knew hurt and never wondered that day what it was I had to do if I didn't want to be hurt again.” Hurt Book:The Sojourn Source: The Sojourn