A will to be unkind is like a sickness. It can be healed or driven out. But to be unkind because you are thoughtless is the worst kind of blindness: difficult to cure, because you cannot see the fault even as you commit it.

Even the most straightforward of paths could turn out to be more complicated than it seemd at first.

I am free to choose my own actions. Indeed, like everyone else, I must be so. A good act that is compelled is not goodness at all, but merely force.

You must never call your enemy by a name you choose for him." “Instead you must call him by the name he calls himself. What he chooses will reflect his pride; it will reveal his desires. But what you choose to call him will reveal your fears, which should be kept to yourself, lest your enemy find the way to exploit them.

I suppose when the things that give you bad dreams live inside you, there's no point in trying to stop them. They're going to come out whenever they decide it is their time. Better just to close your eyes and hold on tight, the faster to get the things you fear to go back to sleep themselves.

Yet even the brightest of sunrises must come to an end.

Over and over, we start our own tales, compose our own stories, whether our lives are short or long. Until at last all our beginnings come down to just one end, and the tale of who we are is done.