Why do you feel so powerless? Go spend an hour with ants. Each of those black specks you see is a life. One whole life that you can save, take, or affect in some way. You have the power to make so many lives better. It is within you. Don’t lose sight of that.

I'm a peasantI'm the muzhikA pest you're destined to play the musicAnd yes it's pleasant to say it's beauty I'mIndebted to rest respecting it truly.

To cry was to release all sorts of ugly little pressures and tensions. Like waking out of a long, dark dream to a sun-filled day.

Because this, as it turned out, was her destiny. Not to be the powerful sorceress her people had been waiting for , not to to be the ruthless killer the assassins needed. Her destiny was to save one person at a time, change things one tiny step after another.It still hurt, a tinge of loss. Her life wouldn't be grand, or dramatic, or momentous. There would be no great choices to make, no moments when everything would change. It would make a dull story if she was ever called upon to tell it.It hurt, yes. But it was also something of a relief.

He presented justice as a psychological relief.

Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.'].

It wasn't supposed to. It was just supposed to stop you from hurting yourself.” “It helps—” “No it doesn't. It just pushes it away temporarily. Just like the booze.” “But I need—” “You need to let yourself feel. Feel it, own it. Then move on.” “You make it sound so easy.” Bitterness drips from each syllable. “It’s not. It’s the fucking hardest thing a person can do.” I smooth a damp strand out of her face and away from my mouth. “It’s the hardest fucking thing. It’s why we drink and do drugs and fight. It’s why I play music and build engines.

There’s a pressure at all hours of the day only a poem can assuage.

Ileni swallowed hard. 'Yes,' she said. 'I am. But it's all going to be the same, for a very long time. The sorcerers will have all the power, and the assassins will eventually regather and start attacking again... And I haven't made any difference at all.'Well,' Evin said, 'I think you've made quite a bit of difference to the people whose lives you saved. Speaking as one of them.'She stepped away from the edge, closer to him. 'Do you regret it?' he asked evenly.His face was half-shadowed, but his eyes were bright and piercing. Not wide with pain and devoid of hope. She felt again his hand, limp and helpless in hers. Felt it tighten as Sorin plummeted past the gray rock. 'No,' she said. And for at least that moment, it was entirely true.

As soon as Mr. Prosser realized that he was substantially the loser after all, it was as if a weight lifted itself off his shoulders: this was more like the world as he knew it.