Hope

"And there was time enough--or so it seemed--for all the cherries atop all the ice-cream sundaes in all the world to fall from their frozen perches, as the heat of a treasure chest summer melted them away. Down and down into the cups of what it would all become, trusting on the ingredients, and how much love had been used to unite them."

"It is the death of hope that comes as the greatest relief"

"Oh, the need to lay my tongue in the rivers of wine,To taste of her lust How a star feels as it bursts infinitely into diamonds The earth cries, but it is only the heavens that weep for her The sun needs to rise once more Cast its loving arms across the mountains and her valleys And pull her from the shadows To bathe her in the warmth the heart only knows as love"

"To lose someone after you’ve loved them was tougher than losing them when you’ve never even met them."

"I should probably get a stone. A stone would be good. A stone would save me, would salvage all the damage we had already done, all the things we had given up or lost."

"When Mother and I learned that Father was dying, Father asked me to sing for him," she said. "Mother insisted that I only sing songs from their youthful days together. She wanted me to take her mind off Father's pain, But when she stepped away, Father asked me to sing songs about pain. About loss. About the world without him. When I played those songs, he would cry. It was the only way he could cry. And now it's the only way I know to cry."We need you to lead us in crying, Lesyl, or we'll drown in unshed tears." [King Cal-Raven replied]"

"The things you let go will someday teach you how to fly."

"Who has believed in the world and died with its name on his lips?"

"despairsometimeshope leads us on teases us withits shiny baublesits stunning horizonsit can carry us overthe roiling turmoilthe raging stormthen as easilywith its cornucopia of liesdrop us into the wavesto flounder against its loss"

"Too often my solution is to let something die because I can’t keep it alive, when God’s solution is to let something live because His Son already died for it."

"Loss is only temporary when you believe in God!"

"We, the beggar class, have little to lose and our expectations are, at best, modest, and when we suffer, it seems we suffer to the depths, for there is nothing in our lives nor in our souls to buoy our hope. Nothing in the way of the blackness. It sinks to the bottom as the lead weight that is despair. We look forward such a short distance that our spirit is myopic, not to be corrected by any lens within our world."

"...hope nourishes while loss empties a person out," he said... "Lila, my love, my love,...lay down your weapons. Don't punish us because I told myself a different story than the one you told yourself."

"The bereaved need more than just the space to grieve the loss. They also need the space to grieve the transition."

"Sometimes life events break your heart. Even as you grieve, allow light to seep through the cracks, uplift, and illuminate a healing. Baby turtles emerge from the cracking of shells; new life can burst forth. Clear away all broken belongings as a metaphorical pathway fresh, loving experiences in uncharted waters."

"Love is just like the flower; it has hidden depths that we rarely ever explore. Beneath the surface lies a network of roots. You can admire the flower for what it is, or you can dig deeper. The more you dig, the more you will find. The real reasons we love a person sometimes exist in the darkest and deepest part of us, the part that knows no logic…or rationale."

"Simply having the courage to say senseless things made me euphoric. I was free, with no need to seek or to give explanations for what I was doing. This freedom lifted me to the heavens - where greater love, one that forgives everything and never allows you to feel abandoned, once again enveloped me."

"Oh, you've outdone me twice now, you queen of forgiveness. The ring's a promise of peace and I'm greedy with hope. It's a song that we sing in a tongue that we share. And though you say it's a gift from a king to a king, I say it's a sign from a queen to a queen."

"What i realise now is that the story actually did have a happy ending: the children came back. In spite of everything the adults did to them, the children found their own way home, their pockets full of precious stones and pearls that gleamed and shone in the light."

"Forgiveness is a gift we can only give to ourselves."