pavement

The path of destiny is not always paved smooth with gold.

Take your own route, not the route everyone is using or taking. Create your own way; there is always traffic on the common route.

The road to success is paved with the hot asphalt of failure.

He was dropped under a streetlamp, the only person left on the bus. A patch of mauled light. Gritty pavement, scarred with a million cigarette burns. Weeds and spit and oil. Place like this, the only glitter was the knife just before it sank in. Place like this, there wasn't any gold.

She needed to get out of there. Her brains, thankfully, were still safely in her skull, but her emotions were splattered on the pavement.