Fool's Fate

Home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there any more.

In that last dance of chances I shall partner you no more. I shall watch another turn you As you move across the floor. In that last dance of chances When I bid your life goodbye I will hope she treats you kindly. I will hope you learn to fly. In that last dance of chances When I know you'll not be mine I will let you go with longing And the hope that you'll be fine. In that last dance of chances We shall know each other's minds. We shall part with our regrets When the tie no longer binds.

I told you I set no limits on my love for you. I don't. Yet I have never expected you to offer me your body. It was the whole of your heart, all for myself, that I sought. Even though I've never had a right to it. For you gave it away ere ever you saw me.

Sometimes it seems unfair that events so old can reach forward through the years, sinking claws into one's life and twisting all that follows it. Yet perhaps that is the ultimate justice: we are the sum of all we have done added to the sum of all that has been done to us. There is no escaping that, not for any of us.

What a man can take with a sword, a woman can give by her flesh alone. Life.

When people look most vicious, what you are seeing is not their animal side. It is the savagery that only humans can muster.

Ah, Beloved. Of all the things I must bid farewell to, you are the most difficult to lose. Forgive me that I have avoided you. Better, perhaps, that we make a space between us and become accustomed to it before fate forces that upon us.

the greatest danger is always the one we are ignorant of.

Every small, unselfish action nudges the world into a better path. An accumulation of small acts can change the world.

Sometimes it seemed to me a cruelty that so much was unresolved between us; at other times, a blessing that a hope of reunion lingered.

All of life, I wanted to tell him, is in our minds. Where else does it take place, where else do we add up what it means to us and subtract what we have lost? An event is just an event until some person attaches meaning to it.

When you see me loyal to my family, then you see the wolf.

He smiled, and reminded me that no man could make time, but only use that which he was given wisely.

For, "Yes," he had sighed on his dying breath, and all knew that was the ultimate prayer one could offer to life.

There are always choices. But sometimes there are no good ones.

Name it as you will, claim it as you will, the world does not belong to men. Men belong to the world. You will not own the earth that eventually your body will become, nor will it recall the name it once answered to.

when you let go and follow your fate instead of trying to twist your life around and master it, a man finds that happiness follows him.

Maybe you have to keep your pain and loss to know that you can survive whatever life deals you. Perhaps without putting your pain in its place in your life, you became something of a coward.

I tried to unbelieve that it had happened, to force time back by sheer effort of will.

in your conceit and aggression, you wage wars and slay one another over the lines you have imagined on the world’s face.

Every small, unselfish action nudges the world into a better path.

Now, anyone with two thoughts in their mind can see that no future is set in stone. An infinite number of futures bud at the end of every moment, and each one of them can be changed by a falling rose petal.

It's a change, and I don't like changes, especially changes I don't understand.' 'Life is change,' the Fool observed lacidly. 'And death is an even greater change. I think we must resign ourselves to change, Fitz.' 'I'm tired of resigning myself to things. My entire life has been one long resignation.

A small pebble can turn a wheel out of its path, he told me, but warned me that it was seldom a pleasant experience for the pebble.

Ours was a ragged and uneven parting. Each of us had intended to see the other again. Each of us had had final words to say. My days with the Fool ended like a half-played game of Stones, the outcome poised and uncertain, possibilities hovering. Sometimes it seemed to me a cruelty that so much was unresolved between us; at other times, a blessing that a hope of reunion lingered. It is like the anticipation that a clever minstrel evokes when he pauses, letting silence pool before sweeping into the final refrain of his song. Sometimes a gap can seem like a promise yet to be fulfilled.

A wise old man taught me that diplomacy is the velvet glove that cloaks the fist of power. Persuasion, not force, works best and lasts longest.

Seldom can one hate a person if one understand that person.

Her stillness was such a contrast to all the jumbled communication inside me that I suddenly felt what a tiresome fellow I was, always filling the air with the rattle of words and anxieties.

From their midst a broad-shouldered man stepped forth, past Longwick, who tried vainly to motion him back. He ran three strides toward me, and I took a deep, unbelieving breath of his scent just before he enfolded me in a bear hug. Despite the pain to my shoulder, I didn't struggle. I dropped my head on his shoulder, and let him support me, feeling safer than I had in years. Suddenly, it seemed as if everything would be all right, as if everything could be mended. Heart of the Pack was here and he never let us come to harm.