The Dead

In my trendy cynicism, it's rare that a piece of literature really touches me, but Joyce's The Dead does this.

"In one letter he had written to her then he had said: Why is it that words like these seem to me so dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender enough to be your name?"

"One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and whither dismally with age. "