1
Running ain't no bad thing. Leastways if you run in the right direction.Mark Lawrence
2
Lucifer spoke thus. Pride took him from heaven, though he sat at God's right hand.' Her voice grew faint, the hint of a whisper. 'In the end pride is the only evil, the root of all sins.'' Pride is all I have.Mark Lawrence
3
When they killed him, Mother wouldn't hold her peace, so they slit her throat. I was stupid then, being only nine, and I fought to save them both. But the thorns held me tight. I've learned to appreciate thorns since. The thorns taught me the game. They let me understand what all those grim and serious men who've fought the Hundred War have yet to learn. You can only win the game when you understand that it IS a game. Let a man play chess, and tell him that every pawn is his friend. Let him think both bishops holy. Let him remember happy days in the shadows of his castles. Let him love his queen. Watch him loose them all.Mark Lawrence
4
Tell me, tutor, ' I said. 'Is revenge a science, or an art?Mark Lawrence
5
I’ll tell you now. That silence almost beat me. It’s the silence that scares me. It’s the blank page on which I can write my own fears. The spirits of the dead have nothing on it. The dead one tried to show me hell, but it was a pale imitation of the horror I can paint on the darkness in a quiet moment.Mark Lawrence
6
Cowards make the best torturers. Cowards understand fear and they can use it.Mark Lawrence
7
Some men are too dull to feel what might happen. Others torture themselves with maybes and populate their dreams with horrors more terrible than their worst enemy could inflict upon them.Mark Lawrence
8
War, my friends, is a thing of beauty.Mark Lawrence
9
Brother Row you could trust to make a long shot with a short bow. You could trust him to come out of a knife fight with somebody else's blood on his shirt. You could trust him to lie, to cheat, to steal, and to watch your back. You couldn't trust his eyes though. He had kind eyes, and you couldn't trust them.Mark Lawrence
10
Memories are dangerous things. You turn them over and over, until you know every touch and corner, but still you'll find an edge to cut you.Mark Lawrence
11
It’s the silence that scares me. It’s the blank page on which I can write my own fears.Mark Lawrence
12
We wrap up our violent and mysterious world in a pretence of understanding. We paper over the voids in our comprehension with science or religion, and make believe that order has been imposed. And, for the most of it, the fiction works. We skim across surfaces, heedless of the depths below. Dragonflies flitting over a lake, miles deep, pursuing erratic paths to pointless ends. Until that moment when something from the cold unknown reaches up to take us. The biggest lies we save for ourselves. We play a game in which we are gods, in which we make choices, and the current follows in our wake. We pretend a separation from the wild. Pretend that a man's control runs deep, that civilization is more than a veneer, that reason will be our companion in dark places. .Mark Lawrence
13
Anything that you cannot sacrifice pins you. Makes you predictable, makes you weak.Mark Lawrence
14
He broke off his explanation, seeing in his daughter's eyes the exact moment that a child first understands there are limits on what her parents can do, rather than just limits on what they choose to do. He knelt before her in a moment's silence, somewhat less than he had been just seconds before, and Emy a half step closer to the woman she would one day become.Mark Lawrence
15
I've been known to be contrary. When something pushes me, I shove back. Even if the one doing the pushing is me. It would have been easy to gut him then and there. Satisfying. But the need was too urgent. I felt pushed.Mark Lawrence
16
Gomst's mouth framed a 'no', but every other muscle in him said 'yes'. You'd think priests would be better liars, what with their jobs and all.Mark Lawrence
17
It was a defeat, resorting to crude threats in a game of subtlety, but sometimes one must sacrifice a battle to win the war.Mark Lawrence
18
I can help you, Jorge. I can give you back your self. I can give you your will.' He held out his hand, palm open. 'Free will has to be taken, ' I said.Mark Lawrence
19
We wrap up our violent and mysterious world in a pretense of understanding. We paper over the voids of our comprehension with science and religion, and make believe that order has been imposed. And, for the most of it, the fiction works. We skim across the surfaces, heedless of the depths below. Dragonflies flitting over a lake, miles deep, pursuing erratic paths to pointless ends. Until that moment when something from the cold unknown reaches up to take us. The biggest lies we save for ourselves. We play a game in which we are gods, in which we make choices, and the current follows in our wake. We pretend a separation from the wild. Pretend that a man’s control runs deep, that civilization is more than a veneer, that reason will be our companion in dark places. .Mark Lawrence