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61 " Anything that you cannot sacrifice pins you. Makes you predictable, makes you weak. "
― Mark Lawrence , Prince of Thorns (The Broken Empire, #1)
62 " Revenge is a business of calculation, best served cold. Rescue holds more of sacrifice, suicidal danger, and all manner of other madness that should have me running in the opposite direction. "
― Mark Lawrence , Prince of Fools (The Red Queen's War, #1)
63 " Thorn stood without motion, for only when you are truly still can you be the centre. She stood without sound, for only silent can you listen. She stood without fear, for only the fearless can understand their peril.Thorn waited. Fearless as flowers, bright, fragile, open to the sky. Brave, as only those who’ve already lost can be. "
― Mark Lawrence , Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor, #1)
64 " As a child there's a horror in discovering the limitations of the ones you love. The time you find that your mother cannot keep you safe, that your tutor makes a mistake, that the wrong path must be taken because the grown-ups lack the strength to take the right one...each of those moments is the theft of your childhood, each of them a blow that kills some part of the child you were, leaving another part of the man exposed, a new creature, tougher but tempered with bitterness and disappointment. "
― Mark Lawrence , King of Thorns (The Broken Empire, #2)
65 " 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. "
66 " Perhaps I just wanted to know what it was that I wanted. Maybe that is all that growing up means. "
67 " 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. "
68 " Assassination is murder with a touch more precision. Brother Sim is precise. "
― Mark Lawrence
69 " All the best secrets are told at night. "
70 " At the dockside I was pleasantly surprised to find the North wasn't all hairy men in animal skins. There was also hairy women in animal skins. "
71 " For the longest time I studied revenge to the exclusion of all else. I built my first torture chamber in the dark vaults of imagination. Lying on bloody sheets in the Healing Hall I discovered doors within my mind that I’d not found before, doors that even a child of nine knows should not be opened. Doors that never close again. I threw them wide. "
72 " Still, perhaps that's all lives are, all the world is, a collision of vast conflagrations, each sparked from nothing. "
73 " Better a long ignoble life of shallow pleasures than a short stab at heroism, ending with a short stab. And just because one man plays another doesn’t always mean that it’s not the right direction for both of them. "
74 " The enemy of my enemy may be my friend … of course the friend of my friend is often a jerk. "
75 " Never having been troubled by a conscience before, I was far from sure what to expect of one, and so when for a minute or two each day at dawn a voice began to whisper to me to be a better man, I decided the shock of recent events had finally woken mine. My conscience had a name— Baraqel. I didn’t like him much. "
76 " Battles are all about strategy, and strategy pivots on priorities. Since my priorities were Prince Jalan, Prince Jalan, and Prince Jalan, with “looking good” a distant fourth, I took the opportunity to resume running away. I find that the main thing about success is the ability to act in the moment. A hero attacks in the moment; a good coward runs in it. The rest of the world waits for the next moment and ends up as crow food. "
77 " It's shame that gets us killed. Shame is the anchor, the heaviest burden to carry from the battlefield. Fortunately shame was an affliction I'd never suffered from. "
78 " ...and an edge that could cut a truth from a lie. "
79 " 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. "
80 " You can win the victories you seek, Jorg. But only if you find better reasons to want them. "