"Now I have to tell you how foolish I am.  Before that gray and lifeless time following Rook's departure, I'd always scoffed at stories in which maidens pine for their absent suitors, boys they've hardly known a week and have no business falling for.  Didn't they realize their lives were worth more than the dubious affection of one silly young man?  That there were things to do in a world that didn't revolve solely around their heartbreak?

Then it happens to you, and you understand you aren't any different from those girls after all.  Oh, they still seem just as absurd - you've simply joined them, in quite a humbling way.  But isn't absurdity part of being human?  We aren't ageless creatures who watch centuries pass from afar.  Our worlds are small, our lives are short, and we can only bleed a little before we fall." 
-An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson