City of Refuge (The Fifth Sacred Thing Book 3)

“There are two basic human drives,” Maya wrote. “The drive to stay safe, and the compelling desire not to miss out on the action. Play to the second, and it will override the first.”

Delusion, and truth. For we are, each of us, unique and precious. We are special, every lumbago-ridden old geezer or lumpy, stolid lug or bustling, bossy matron, as radiant as the blazing stars. Love peels back the veil, the Big Illusion, the lie that we are expendable, interchangeable. Love is grace, shed by the divine onto the ordinary world. And

But he was happy. Happiness, Maya always said, was not situational. “There’s a certain type of person—organizers. Activists. Fighters. Doesn’t matter how grim the situation, or how bad the odds. As long as they can see something before them they can do, they’re happy!” she would say.

Love. What is it, really, but the great delusion that this other person is special, uniquely precious in all the universe? And yet it’s a delusion we crave. We can’t live without some base of it, some eyes that mirror back our infant smiles with amazement and wonder, as if no child had ever smiled before.