You are so young, Lyra, too young to understand this, but I shall tell you anyway and you'll understand it later: men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually racked with pain. We bear their children, who are witches if they are female, human if not; and then in the blink of an eye they are gone, felled, slain, lost. Our sons, too. When a little boy is growing, he thinks he is immortal. His mother knows he isn't. Each time becomes more painful, until finally your heart is broken. Perhaps that is when Yambe-Akka comes for you. She is older than the tundra. Perhaps, for her, witches' lives are as brief as men's are to us. Philip Pullman
About This Quote

Death has come for you. It comes each time you walk through the door. It always seems to be there, waiting around the corner. It doesn't show up until you are ready to let it in.

And then, before you know it, it's too late. It wraps its arms around your chest and squeezes until you can't breathe. You feel empty.

Your heart is ripped out of your chest and held hostage inside your ribcage. Death doesn't take your soul, though, not yet. Only when it has taken every last piece of you is death satisfied enough to let go of its hold on you.

You are left broken, empty, torn apart by the very thing that put you in this position to begin with: Time itself.

Source: The Golden Compass

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