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Quote by Lance Morcan

“Ever since boyhood, he had dreamed of the mysterious place his ancestors had discovered far to the south centuries earlier. A direct descendant of the great Polynesian explorer Kupe, Hotu shared many of his famous forefather's traits. Like Kupe and, indeed, like most Hawaikans, he was a born sailor. He had that uncanny ability to safely cross huge tracts of ocean, using only the sun and stars as his compass.”

Quote by Lance Morcan

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New Zealand

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Lance Morcan

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“I'm here to give a tithe," she told the Heartwood. "I give you my voice---and with it, my dreams beyond the woods. I'll be your new Song Mage, if you'll have me." Breathing in sharply, Emeline thought of the cost. She would never again sing her songs beneath the lights. Never walk out on a new stage or record an album she was proud of. She would never get the chance to prove she could make it on her terms. Emeline breathed out, letting it go. It hurt when the woods took her offering. Like hands reaching in and plucking out her soul, severing her from her oldest dream. But when she breathed, something new flooded in. It felt like the night she sang to the elm tree cage, asking the trees to set Hawthorne free. She'd felt the power in her voice flow out of her that night. This time, though, it was the reverse. Power was flowing in. Infusing her marrow and blood. Folding itself into her skin. It was like Grace said: there was magic in sacrifice. Emeline had tithed the most precious thing she owned, and something equally precious was filling in the gaps. It coursed through her---thick as honey, bright as starlight. Pushing like a blazing-hot sun. Humming like a swarm of contented bees. Power. It tasted like sugared sunshine on her tongue.”

“Leave me,” he groaned in pain. “Run.”
His face paled, blood dribbling between his lips as he coughed. I’d seen death on people’s faces more times than I could count. Death had a way of revealing people’s true natures. Some people begged, some threatened, some tried to bargain. And this idiot I didn’t even know was dying and still trying to help me. I hated him for it. He started trying to talk again, grabbing at my hands. “Shut up, dumbass,” I hissed at him, pressing harder at his wound. He cried out in pain, but his cry cut off as the familiar warmth spread from my chest down my arms and into his stomach. The bullet had gone clean through his gut. Normally a death wound, but not tonight. I could feel his body mending beneath my fingers, all the muscles and organs knitting themselves back together. His hand curled over the top of one of mine, squeezing gently, and I glanced up to see his eyes full of awe. The wound closed shut, leaving what I knew would be a fresh pink scar, and all the warmth left me.”

“What’d you mean when you said it would never be enough?” The sudden change in topics made me nauseous. “It’s…nothing,” I lied. “You can tell me,” he urged. “I…I just…” Gods, those damn brown eyes made it hard to think straight. “I have a lot of blood on my hands.” He frowned. “I have this…this power to heal…but I keep…I keep hurting people. I don’t know…I don’t know if I can heal enough…to make up for it.” “Are you keeping score?” he asked, but not in a mocking way. He studied my face, his brow furrowed as though he wanted to understand. “No. I don’t know. I just…I want to…I need to balance the scales.” “What scales?” “The…scales.” I gestured vaguely with one hand, my face heating. “Do you feel responsible every time you can’t heal someone?” “I've watched so many people die," I whispered. "People I could've saved with my powers."”

“The more he saw, the more he doubted. He watched men narrowly, and saw how, beneath the surface, courage was often rashness; and prudence, cowardice; generosity, a clever piece of calculation; justice, a wrong; delicacy, pusillanimity; honesty, a modus vivendi; and by some strange dispensation of fate, he must see that those who at heart were really honest, scrupulous, just, generous, prudent or brave were held cheaply by their fellow-men. ‘What a cold-blooded jest!’ said he to himself. ‘It was not devised by a God.’ From that time forth he renounced a better world, and never uncovered himself when a Name was pronounced, and for him the carven saints in the churches became works of art”

“A part of me tried to fabricate reasons in my mind why it was too dangerous, or why it couldn’t be possible. But I knew the truth — there was a part of me that was just afraid of change. And another part that was afraid of losing what made me special. I’d risked my life for that attunement. Was it really fair for others to get them for free? Perhaps even any attunement of their choice? But that was an inherently selfish line of thinking.”

“…I’d let those entering (grad) students in on my secret—higher education is all about perseverance. It has nothing to do with smarts or creativity or anything else. It’s about cultivating the willingness and stamina for hoop jumping. Jump through the hoops, I’d say. Do it well. Do it relentlessly. And in a few years you can join the elite of the American education system secure in the knowledge that you too can endure with the best of them.”