Our children change us... whether they live or not.

You should have fallen in love with a happy man, if you wanted happiness. But no, you had to fall for the breathtaking beauty of pain.

Poets speak of hope in ladies smiles, but give me a smirk any day, I say.

I'm not getting it all sorted, she worried. I'm not getting it right. You are brilliant, the Voice reassured her. It is imperfect. So are all things trapped in time. You are brilliant, nonetheless. How fortunate for Us that We thirst for glorious souls rather than faultless ones, or We should be parched indeed, and most lonely in Our perfect righteousness. Carry on imperfectly, shining Ista.

We should have taken our chances back then, when we were young and beautiful and didn't even know it.

Your father calls you to his court. You need not pack. You go garbed in glorious raiment. He waits eagerly by his palace doors to welcome you, and has prepared a place at the high table, by his side, in the company of the great-souled, honored, and best-beloved.

He's not too short. He's just... concentrated.