Cliff Lewis

“There are truths you know but will not speak. Even to yourself in the darkness where we are all of us alone. There are memories you see and yet don't see.”
― Mark Lawrence, Emperor of Thorns

“Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. Truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“I kissed her cheek then, because I feared to do it and though commonsense may occasionally bind me, I'll be fucked if fear will.”
― Mark Lawrence, Emperor of Thorns

“There’s power in the touch of another person’s hand. We acknowledge it in little ways, all the time. There’s a reason human beings shake hands, hold hands, slap hands, bump hands.

“It comes from our very earliest memories, when we all come into the world blinded by light and color, deafened by riotous sound, flailing in a suddenly cavernous space without any way of orienting ourselves, shuddering with cold, emptied with hunger, and justifiably frightened and confused. And what changes that first horror, that original state of terror?

“The touch of another person’s hands.

“Hands that wrap us in warmth, that hold us close. Hands that guide us to shelter, to comfort, to food. Hands that hold and touch and reassure us through our very first crisis, and guide us into our very first shelter from pain. The first thing we ever learn is that the touch of someone else’s hand can ease pain and make things better.

“That’s power. That’s power so fundamental that most people never even realize it exists.”
― Jim Butcher, Skin Game