12
" While reading, we can leave our own consciousness, and pass over into the consciousness of another person, another age, another culture. " Passing over," a term used by the theologian John Dunne, describes the process through which reading enables us to try on, identify with, and ultimately enter for a brief time the wholly different perspective of another person's consciousness. When we pass over into how a knight thinks, how a slave feels, how a heroine behaves, and how an evildoer can regret or deny wrongdoing, we never come back quite the same; sometimes we're inspired, sometimes saddened, but we are always enriched. Through this exposure we learn both the commonality and the uniqueness of our own thoughts -- that we are individuals, but not alone. "
13
" I slay dragons at night while you sleep.
I see by the way your face contorts how they exist in your dreams.
Willing a magic sword, I plunge into your deepest nightmares and swing at the beasts with all my might, dodging flames exhaled by monsters that would eat me alive to go on torturing the fair one I love. I see your face relax, eyes still drowsily closed, when the mighty dragon is slain.
It may be that my fingers rub soft circles on your forehead as I imagine my brave fight as a knight reclaiming your dreams. You smile under the spell of my touch, and I am rewarded. And so, my love, as I await the dawn, I stand ready to slay dragons while you sleep. "
― Richelle E. Goodrich , Slaying Dragons: Quotes, Poetry, & a few Short Stories for Every Day of the Year
14
" What do you know of the Knights?” he asked.
Fin shrugged. “I thought knights were only in children’s stories until a few days ago.”
Jeannot smiled. “A man could do worse than to live in the stories of a child. There is, perhaps, no better remembrance.”
“Until the child grows up and finds out the stories aren’t true. You might be knights, but I don’t see any shining armor,” Fin said.
Jeannot stopped near the gate of the auberge and faced her. “Each time a story is told, the details and accuracies and facts are winnowed away until all that remains is the heart of the tale. If there is truth at the heart of it, a tale may live forever. As a knight, there is no dragon to slay, no maiden to rescue, and no miraculous grail to uncover. A knight seeks the truth beneath these things, seeks the heart. We call this the corso. The path set before us. The race we must run. "
― A.S. Peterson , Fiddler's Green (Fin's Revolution, #2)
15
" Everyone and everything needed to be raised to its highest level – the teacher must become a mage, the husband a knight errant, the labor a hero in a sacred drama – intensified, rarefied, baptized in the turbulent waters of restlessness, curiosity, and ardor. "
― Philip Zaleski , The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams
18
" Celine glanced up as she passed under an arch, at another of the chateau’s decorations, her personal favorite: the entwined letters G and R, carved over every doorway. Family legend had it that one of the original owners of the chateau, a knight by the name of Sir Gaston de Varennes, was responsible for that bit of artwork. Sir Gaston, it seemed, had been quite a ladies’ man—until he had met and married his wife, whom he loved so much, he had had her initial engraved with his in every castle he owned. "
― Shelly Thacker , Forever His (Stolen Brides, #2)
