Jeremiah Fierro

“The day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns and duties.
Help us to play the man,
Help us to perform them with laughter and kind faces,
Let cheerfulness abound with industry.
Give us to go blithely on our business all this day,
Bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonoured,
And grant us in the end the gift of sleep.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson

“Fringe winds from Hurricane Lori rushed in, carrying dust and debris. It blew through the highceilinged, chandeliered lobby and back into the wide open doors of the elegant and intimate dining room. White linen tablecloths fluttered and napkins flew in the air, sending plates and silverware crashing to the floor.”
― Behcet Kaya, Murder on the Naval Base

“Later, back in the Den of Thieves, Rafe explained it all to Raimund. The boy was partially mollified. Rafe did not know about Raimund’s dreams, and Raimund did not enlighten him, so Raimund puzzled by himself. What did it mean? How had Aleana come to be in the prison cell under the protection of the young man from his dreams – in the arms of the young man who was now the occupant of his family’s old cottage? How had the man ended up in prison, and what was his crime? Most importantly, what would happen to Aleana?”
― Robert Reid, The Thief

“Chiron had said once that nations were the most foolish of mortal inventions. “No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from.”

“But what if he is your friend?” Achilles had asked him, feet kicked up on the wall of the rose-quartz cave. “Or your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?”

“You ask a question that philosophers argue over,” Chiron had said. “He is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else’s friend and brother. So which life is more important?”

We had been silent. We were fourteen, and these things were too hard for us. Now that we are twenty-seven, they still feel too hard.

He is half of my soul, as the poets say. He will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain. It is his child, his dearest self. Should I reproach him for it? I have saved Briseis. I cannot save them all.

I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles