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41 " She walks with the knowledge that, no matter what, she's not one of you. She loves you, but not your people. You love her, but not the life she wants. you long for a world where you can walk with her and she with you and know that you will never need anything else.I can give you, and everyone, a world like that. I ask you not to believe me... only to listen. "
― Sam Sykes , The City Stained Red (Bring Down Heaven, #1)
42 " She always preferred paper to people. People were noisome, demanding, judgmental. Books gave everything and asked nothing more than to be taken care of. I found her priorities charming. "
― Sam Sykes , Seven Blades in Black (The Grave of Empires, #1)
43 " Envy, it was often said among shicts, was the mother of human invention, "
44 " When you get down to it, people aren't too different from scars. You go through life collecting them. And when you get a new one, you feel it. The pain, at first, is so raw and vibrant that you feel it with every step you take beside them....The one day, before you even know it, you wake up and just feel a numbness where something else used to be. But you never forget it's there. Not once. "
― Sam Sykes , Ten Arrows of Iron (The Grave of Empires, #2)
45 " Pain, though... Pain is different. Not all pain is equal....Pain is a weapon. And all it comes down to whoever's the one holding it when it sticks into you. "
46 " Maybe, sometimes...it's just nice to be with someone who hurts the same way you do. "
47 " He wasn't staring into the fire anymore. He wasn't even here anymore. Behind those eyes, there was nothing but a dark place, far away and lightless, that he'd disappeared into. I knew that look. I knew that place. ...Wherever he went , whatever dark place inside his head he crawled into, it wasn't a place for laughter, for words. It wasn't a place I could follow. Places like that, everyone has to go through on their own. "
48 " I held his hand, there on my skin, not willing to let go of that warmth, that touch, that...feeling. Of not being broken. For a little while, anyway. "
49 " He could sense the word resting on her tongue as a hedonist sensed a tongue resting on something else. "
― Sam Sykes , An Affinity for Steel: The Aeon's Gate Omnibus
50 " Hope is ill advised. "
51 " They call it an art and dress it up with fancy words and complex theories, but magic is as simple as love. It is just a price and a person willing to pay it. "
52 " as it seemed to suddenly dawn on him that I was a woman under that wet, stinking cloak. “But if you really want to make me happy—” “I’ll tell you what.” I held up a finger. “Finishing that thought might make you happy in the short term, but keeping it to yourself will make you not get punched in the mouth in the long term. "
53 " Here’s the problem,” Dransun interrupted. “You’ve got no colors and no affiliation, but you’ve got a sword. So you’ve got the means to kill people, but not the means to be held responsible.” He sniffed. “Parents?” “What?” “Any parents?” “Both dead.” “Hometown?” “Burned to the ground.” “Allies? Compatriots? Friends?” “Just the ones I find on the road. And in a tavern. And, this one time, hunched over a "
54 " First, you’re going to tell me what you do for a living.” “I’m an apprentice!” he said. “Scribe’s apprentice!” “You need both hands for that?” He looked at me weird. “Uh, no?” And then he screamed as I brought the heel of my boot down on his hand and heard each finger break under it. I suppose it would have been more poetic to make him swear to give up his life of crime. In truth, I’d tried that before in my more callow days. Enough scars and mistakes later, I learned that experience teaches best. "
55 " Take your pick. They were a fruit basket of assholes.” Sal paused, considered. “An ass basket, if you will. "
56 " same sweat and road that I did. Always beautiful, even "
57 " If you must choose between wisdom and drama, choose drama—all the legends about wise people are boring, the old saying went. I had always thought it sound advice. "
― Sam Sykes , The Gallows Black (The Grave of Empires, #0.5)
58 " Because she only trusts weapons in her own hands,” Liette muttered. “Or,” I snapped over my shoulder, “it’s because if you run into any creature out here, the only thing a weapon will be good for is turning it on yourself before it has a chance to eat you.” I sniffed. “And if it ate you, it’d eat the weapon, too, and then how would I kill myself "
59 " Well, why don’t we ever get to talk about what I want to talk about?” I demanded. “Because we have already covered the conversational breadth of guns, tits, and whiskey.” I sniffed, a little more petulant than I would have liked to appear. “I like other stuff. "
60 " To them, suffering came from neither loss nor tragedy, but from desire and denial. To them, suffering was no famine or drought. Suffering was a belly not yet full to bursting, a mouth that drank water instead of wine. To them, suffering was something temporary, to be overcome, to be put aside and placed on a mantel with all their other things made of metal. "