A thousand things might have stopped me from being here right now, but instead, a thousand things brought me here.

You could look out the window today, see the sky raining fire, and say that it has all been for nothing, everything we've ever done, because now we've lost. But folk were born and lived and knew friendship and music in this city, ugly as it is, and all across this land that we fought for. Some grew old, and others were less lucky. Many bore children and raised them, and had the pleasure of making them, too, and we gave them that for as long as we could. Who has ever done more, my friend?

I will do just as you wish,' said no cat ever.

The audacity to love. Do you know what a gift that is?

He actually listened, rather than pretending to listen while waiting a suitable interval before it was his time to talk again.

...the air seeming to gather around her like held breath. As if this whole place were a story about her.

War is all we've been taught, but there are other ways to live. We can find them, Akiva. We can invent them. This is the beginning, here." She touched his chest and felt a rush of love for the heart that moved his blood, for his smooth skin and his scars and his unsoldierly tenderness. She took his hand and pressed it to her breast and said, "We are the beginning.