“Since I encountered death, met death on every mountain path, conversed with death in my sleep, wrestled with death in the snow, gambled at dice with death, I have come to the conclusion that death is not an enemy but a sibling. Death is a beautiful naked woman who looks like Aphrodite, and she is not satisfied with those who wither away in old age. Death is a perfectionist, she likes the young and beautiful, she wants to stroke our hair and caress the sinew that binds our muscle to the bone. She does all she can to meet us, our faces gladden her heart, and she stands in our path to challenge us because she likes a clean fair fight, and after the fight she likes to befriend us, clap us on the shoulder, and make us laugh at all the pettiness and folly of the living. At the conclusion of a battle she wanders amongst the dead, raising them up, placing laurels upon the brows of those most comely, and she gathers them together as her own children and takes them away to drink wine that tastes of honey and gives them the sense of proportion that they never had in life.”
― Louis de Bernières, Corelli’s Mandolin