Mud

“You could make a poultice out of mud to cool a fever. You could plant seeds in mud and grow a crop to feed your children. Mud would nourish you, where fire would only consume you, but fools and children and young girls would choose fire every time.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance With Dragons

This passage from A Dance With Dragons gave me goosebumps the first time I read it.  A true love story, one grounded in reality and not fleeting dreams, is built upon mud, and not fire.