The Farthest Shore

I will not take the counsel of despair. I

But only to us is it given to know that we must die. And that is a great gift: the gift of selfhood. For we have only what we know we must lose, what we are willing to lose... That selfhood which is our torment, and our treasure, and our humanity, does not endure. It changes; it is gone, a wave on the sea. Would you have the sea grow still and the tides cease, to save one wave, to save yourself?

What you undertake, you will complete. You are a fulfiller of hope; you are to be relied on. But seventeen years give little armor against despair... Consider, Arren. To refuse death is to refuse life.

He was to be depended on.

He was worth all the love Arren had for him, and all the trust.

Whether the wizardry that serves a better end may always prove the stronger, we do not know. We hope

So the first step out of childhood is made all at once, without looking before or behind, without caution, and nothing held in reserve.