E.M. White

“He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“In silent agreement we squeeze into the window to study our valley. Unlovely in the early spring, crusted with think rime of muddy snow, the river still choked with ice, a single dark thread of water at it’s centre. Sleeping tangle of grey saplings, dead shrubs of sepia or amber or faded dogwood red. Brown sparrows and dust-colored pigeons. The only real color is magpipes, repeated shouts of iridescence, irritatingly clean in their black and white suits. Like photographs of actor or spies. How do they stay so clean in this crap, I always wonder.”
― Premee Mohamed, The Annual Migration of Clouds

“True courage is about knowing not when to take a life, but when to spare one.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien