Words were power, words tried to change you, to shape bridges of longing that no one could ever really cross. - Guy Gavriel Kay

In this world, where we find ourselves, we need compassion more than anything, I think, or we are all alone.

Ned found that if he thought about things like that too much, the accident of it all, his mind started down unsettling paths.…
Could you make a pattern out of any of this? Stitch together the seeming randomness into something that had meaning? Is that what life was about, he wondered: trying to make that pattern, to have things make sense?

When power is gone the memory of power lingers.