The truth is that the world is full of dragons, and none of us are as powerful or cool as we’d like to be. And that sucks. But when you’re confronted with that fact, you can either crawl into a hole and quit, or you can get out there, take off your shoes, and Bilbo it up.

If you fall, you fall," Elodin shrugged. "Sometimes falling teaches us things too." In dreams you often fall before you wake.

I was in my early twenties and I was, to be quite honest, a bit of a punk. A swaggering entitled straight white guy who hadn't but a lot of thought into what it might be like to be anything other than a straight white guy. Because when you're a straight white guy, you don't *have* to think about that....

If you want to know the truth of who you are, walk until not a person knows your name. Travel is the great leveler, the great teacher, bitter as medicine, crueler than mirror-glass. A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself.

The point isn't to win the game. The point is to play a beautiful game. (paraphrased)

- Sí, es como la vida misma- replicó ella-. Nos gustan las cosas dulces, pero necesitamos las amargas.

...“Bitter.”“That’s how you know it’s real medicine,” I said. “If ittasted good it would be candy.”“Isn’t that the way of the world?” she said. “We want thesweet things, but we need the unpleasant ones.

But how awful would that be? How terrible to live surrounded by the stark, sharp, hollowness of things that simply were enough?