Perhaps that was the point; life, if you did it right, meant learning and changing. If you didn't, you died- or stopped growing - which amounted to more or less the same thing. So I would slide in and out of different roles until I discovered the one that fit me best. -Deuce, (183)

With my partner beside me, I fear nothing, not even death.

He'd said the sun could burn me. It certainly looked angry enough, all orange and glowing mad.

Because it takes more courage to heal the world's hurts than to inflict them.

He's earned a lifetime of peace and happiness, but some people never get what they deserve. That's why there are saints in gutters and sadists in palaces.

You can live without me." "I don't want to." I feared a love like this - that made us incomplete without each other. It was beautiful but treacherous, like snow that looked white and pure and lovely from the safety of your window, but when you stepped out to touch the softness, the cold first stole your breath, and then your will to move, until you could just lay down in it and let the numbness take you. yet I didn't want to be without him either, so I didn't chide him for the statement.

Here in the enclave, one didn't prosper by demonstrating too much independent thought.