Basilia

“So the great waves of fear rose yet higher and higher, and all his strength was drained out of his body, and his face was white as death, so that it would have been God's mercy for him to die. He was afraid he might stumble and fall there in the street, so he went into our little park, which is no park at all but only a piece of the grass country fenced in and planted with trees, and there he sat on a seat and said, God have mercy upon me, O Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me. And all the people went by in the street, and saw only the lieutenant taking a few moments from his duty to sit on a seat in the park, and did not know it was a man in agony, calling on God for mercy. For to them the sun was shining, and the doves were calling in the trees, and they had no trouble greater than General Smuts or the Government, or the rumor that the black people were planning a great strike and procession in Johannesburg.”
― Alan Paton, Too Late the Phalarope

“I am in fact, a hobbit in all but size”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“I knew the legends of the birds. Seagulls were the souls of dead soldiers. Owls were the souls of women. Doves were the recently departed souls of unmarried girls.

Was there a bird for the souls of people like me?”
― Ruta Sepetys, Salt to the Sea

“So, everything that’s happened, that’s just the way life is, and it’s never going to be the way you think you want it. I’m not embarrassed about my brother, but I just don’t want to relive it, because people ask, “Oh, where’s your brother, what’s he doing?” and I have to say I don’t know, I haven’t seen him in over 30 years.”
― Nicole Morris, Vanished: True Stories from Families of Australian Missing Persons