A particularly good book had a way of opening new spaces in one's mind. It even invited you to come back later and rummage through what you'd learned.

I wanted a love thick with time, as inscrutable as if a lathe had carved it from night and as familiar as the marrow in my bones. I wanted the impossible, which made it that much easier to push out of my mind.

Sometimes you don't even know how special you might be. Sometimes it takes moments of horror or happiness to, if you will, unleash that knowledge.

Stories, knowledge...they set the mind alight.

Fear grew in places unlit by knowledge.