Mark Lawrence Quotes

These were bankers we were talking about, and I owed taxes. They'd hunt me to the ends of the earth!

A strange thing - nails will hold a building together, but there's nothing better for taking a man apart.

And that's the riddle of existence for you. When to move and when to stay. Dwell too long and we become the prisoner of our dreams, or someone else's. Move too fast, live without pause, and you'll miss it all, your whole life a blur of doing. Good lives are built of moments – of times when we step back and truly see. The dream and the dreamer. There's the rub. Does the dream ever let go?

Pretty much everything exploded.

The world eats good men for breakfast.

Let people pray to God, it's nothing to me. Some good may even come of it, if goodness is something that matters to you. Trap him in churches if you must, and lament him there. But Roma? Roma is a weapon used against us. A poison flavoured sweet and given to hungry men.

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.

You can look after this knight's soul, Father. The sins of the flesh though - they're all mine.

Sometimes my lies impressed the hell out of me.

They call me a monster and if it were untrue the weight of my crimes would pin me to the ground. I have maimed and I have murdered and if this mountain stood but a little higher I would cut the angels from their heaven. I care less for accusations than for the rain that soaks me, that runs down every limb. I spit both from my lips. Judgment has always left a sour taste.

I always knew you'd try this Viking shit on me.

A part of me longed to lay it all down, that weight I carried, the acid pain of memory, the corrosion of hate.

Man is doomed to repeat his mistakes time and again because he learns only from experience.

Ragnarok. Is that all the North ever thinks about? Is that what you want, Snorri? Some great battle and the world ruined and dead?" I couldn't blame him if he did. Not with what had befallen him this past year, but I would be disturbed to know he had always lusted after such an end, even on the night before the black ships came to Eight Quays.
The light kindling on my torch caught him in midshrug. "Do you want the paradise your priests paint for you on cathedral ceilings?"
"Good point.

I am pride! Let the meek have their inheritance - I'd rather have eternity in shadows than divine bliss at the price you ask.

Give me your bow," I said to the Nuban.
He frowned. "You're going to shoot him?"
The guard laughed, but there wasn't an ounce of humour in the Nuban. He was getting to know me.

And that's how it is in this world, boy. Start a tale, just a little tale that should fade and die - take your eye off it for just a moment and when you turn back it's grown big enough to grab you up in its teeth and shake you. That's how it is. All our lives are tales. Some spread, and grow in the telling. Others are just told between us and the gods, muttered back and forth behind our days, but those tales grow too and shake us just as fierce.

Anything that you cannot sacrifice pins you. Makes you predictable, makes you weak.

Questions for questions. You're a man who's spent time at court.

Memory is all we are. Moments and feelings, captured in amber, strung on filaments of reason. Take a man's memories and you take all of him. Chip away a memory at a time and you destroy him as surely as if you hammered nail after nail through his skull.

This is a bad idea."
"If you ever stop saying that, I'll know it's time to start worrying.

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The world is changing, moving beneath our feet. We are in a war, children of the Red March, though you may not see it yet, may not feel it. We are in a war against everything you can imagine and armed only with our desire to oppose it.

Tell me, tutor,' I said. 'Is revenge a science, or an art?

Weakness is a contagion, one breath of it can corrupt a man whole and entire. Now though, even with all the evil in me, I don't know if I could teach such lessons to a son of mine.

There are no other choices for you, Prince Jalan, and when there are no choices all men are equally brave.

Some truths you can't speak. Some truths come barbed; each word would tear you inside out if you forced them from your lips. She -

The air tasted of old magic, neither good nor ill, but of the land, having no love for man.

Some arguments require a knife if you're to cut to the quick, others require the breaking of heads with a philosopher's stone.

The night can last twenty hours and even when the day finally breaks it never gets above a level of cold I call "fuck that" - as in you open the door, your face freezes instantly to the point where it hurts to speak, but manfully you manage to say "fuck that," before turning round, and going back to bed.

Or some flat-bellied scow out of Aegypt, treasure-laden?

Let's go to Valhalla with the sun on our faces.

The Prince of Arrow has a much bigger army than you," Miana said. No "Your Highness" no "My Lord."
"Yes, he does." I kept waving to the crowd, the big smile on my face.
"He's going to win, isn't he?" she said. She looked twelve but she didn't sound twelve.
"How old are you?" I asked, a quick glance down at her, still waving.
"Twelve."
Damn.

Angry at being angry - there's a worm that will eat its tail and no mistake. I should have Oroborus on my family crest.

Don't worry. He's out there, and we're in here. If he couldn't manage to get through those bars in all the months they held him trapped on this side, he's not going to manage to get back through them before Racso's next visit, now is he? I'd barely got the words out before Mr. Cough drew in another gurgling breath as if he were drowning in whatever filth was filling his lungs.

Fear is a valuable commodity, it's common sense compressed into its purest form.

Sixty beats of a heart would be enough. If I could hold them. Let them know I came for them no matter what stood in my way. It would be enough. Sixty beats of a heart past that door would outweigh sixty years in this world without them.

No man's an island. Not even the ones that think they are. Especially not them.

But who would I be then? Who would I be if I let go the wrongs that have shaped me?

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.

Abomination . . ." The word escaped him in a slow breath. "And more besides," I agreed. "Now forgive me." Father Gomst found his wits at last, but still he held back. "What do you want with me, Lucifer?" A fair question. "I want to win," I said. He

My enemies defeated, and yet the sorrow remained, keener, more true, more clean, for I had always owned it. It echoed back to the thorns, the tone of a bell resounding through the years. We're fashioned by our sorrows - not by joy - they are the undercurrent, the refrain. Joy is fleeting.

Call it a personal foible. Some people are scared of spiders. I'm scared of immolation. Also spiders.

There are some things that must be done quickly or not at all. If someone asks you if you love them you cannot hesitate. There are some paths that must be taken at speed.

I've always seen 'no' as a challenge rather than an answer.

Hate will keep you alive where love fails

No man should go to Valhalla with brothel rash.

Maeres's companion, though, he looked like the sort of man who would drown kittens recreationally.

I fell asleep to the faint sounds of the nonsense doggerel Merican Pie.

Always take the money, Hennan offered with a small grin.

When you're moving in a dark and haunted forest the urge is for every step to be taken more quickly than the last. There's a pressure between your shoulder blades. Each creak and groan is a hunter stalking you, each flutter of wind its breath, close against your neck. You want to break and run, in any direction, just as long as it's fast.

I have read that the Builders made toys that could play chess. Toys, as small as the silver bishop in my hand, that could defeat any player, taking no time to select moves that undid even the best minds amongst their makers. The bishop made a satisfying click when tapped to the board. I beat out a little rhythm, wondering if any point remained in playing a game that toys could own. If we couldn't find a better game then perhaps the mechanical minds the Builders left behind would always win.

And in my experience, any monster that talks in a human voice, is human. Or was.

I didn't ask anything - I hadn't the words. Instead I spoke the smallest one - the one I should have used more in my short and foolish life.

Sorry.

I eased back into the throne. Damn comfortable: swan-down and silk. Kinging it is pain in the arse enough without one of those gothic chairs.

Well, games of chance and I are no strangers. This trading in papers . . . is it a bit like gambling?" "It's exactly like gambling, Prince Jalan.

Those young women who want a career ... They can have mine.

THERE IS, IN the act of destruction, a beauty which we try to deny, and a joy which we cannot. Children

It's when your power is taken, or given, away that you discover who your friends are, brother. There's a lesson for us all in that.

When a course of action is forced upon you it's best to accept it with grace and milk it for whatever you can get, right up to the moment the first opportunity to weasel out of the deal presents itself.

If I think back on my successes, such as they are, they come as often as not from the simple exercise of putting two disparate facts together and making a weapon of them.

children hope in ways adults find hard to imagine. They carry their dreams before them, fragile, in both arms, waiting for the world to trip them. I

Though I might walk where angels fear to tread, I try not to rush in like a fool.

Do you know why the leaves change colour, Makin?" They did look spectacular. The forest had grown around us as we traveled and the canopy burned with colour, from deepest red to flame orange, an autumn fire spreading in defiance of the rain.
"I don't know," he said, "Why do they change?"
"Before a tree sheds a leaf it pumps it full of all the poison it can't rid itself of otherwise. That red there - that's a man's skin blotching with burst veins after an assassin spikes his last meal with roto-weed. The poison spreading through him before he dies.

When I started the 'Broken Empire' trilogy, I thought it was a short story, and I didn't know the beginning, middle, or end of even that.

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.

Knowledge and truth are different things.

I laughed at them. Not because I thought they had no power to harm me, but because they had.

It's hard to carry a weight of news with none to tell and days ahead before you can release it. Good news weighs just as heavy as bad.

Hurt spreads and grows and reaches out to break what's good. Time heals all wounds, but often it's only by the application of the grave, and while we live some hurts live with us, burning, making us twist and turn to escape them. And as we twist, we turn into other men.

The best liars always tell the truth - they just choose which parts.

I turned to the guard. "Keep her here, Rodrick. Unless she comes up with a plan to destroy the remainder of the enemy. In which case you're to let her do it.

When you take a woman away from her man, what you get is a woman who can be taken away from her man.

Decadence begins when the budget to beautify a man's home exceeds the coin spent to ensure its defense.

Cleverness builds ever more elaborate structures of self-justification ... But in the end you know what is and what is not right. All men do, though they may spend their years trying to bury that knowing, burying it beneath words, hatred, lusts, sorrow, or any of the other bricks from which they build their lives ... When the time comes, you'll know. But knowing is never enough.

North of Hardanger the children would run naked in warm rains like these. We don't sew our bearskins on until the sea starts to freeze,' he said.
I nearly hit him.

It's an irony of our times that men seeking peace must make war.

there's a time and place for taking offence.

Take a rest and the world catches up with you. Lesson in life - keep moving.

I kissed her cheek then, because I feared to do it and though commonsense may occasionally bind me, I'll be fucked if fear will.

A knight trusts in his own judgement, and the weight of his sword.

I would shake the world until its teeth rattled if that was required to have it spit out an answer.

A fool may scrawl on a slate and if no one has the wit to wipe it clean for a thousand years, the scrawl becomes the wisdom of ages.

Go fuck yourself,' I said. I kept it pleasant.

Some truths should perhaps be left unsaid. Some doors unopened. An angel once told me to let go of the ills I held too close, to let go of the flaws that shaped me.

And we went out into the day, and all the heat of it couldn't touch the ice in me.

Why would the gods care what happens to a child who doesn't care about himself?

A man can reach into anything and turn it to his cause. It's not want, or desire, just certainty. Only be assured that whatever you reach into will reach into you in turn.

Beside me Makin looked to have retreated into that closed and lonely place that we all reach if we keep digging. Dig a little deeper than that and you're in hell of a sudden.

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.

Does she have some demonic sewing kit in there? Will the thread assault us? The thimbles hurl themselves upon me? Bobbins-"
"She said-"
"We'll die. I know.

I dropped the head and kicked it into the crowd. I say "kicked" but in truth it's a bad idea to kick a head. I learned that years ago, a lesson that cost me two broken toes. What you want to do is shove the head with the side of your foot, like you're throwing it. It's going to roll anyhow so you don't need that much force. See, the thing about severed heads is the owner no longer has any interest in minimizing the force of the blow, or any ability to do so for that matter. When you kick somebody in the head as you do from time to time, they tend to be actively trying to move themselves out of the way and the contact is lessened. A severed head is a dead weight, even if it's watching you.
And that exhausts my insights into the kicking of severed heads. Admittedly it's more than most people have to offer on the subject but there were Mayans who knew a lot more than I do. That of course is a whole different ball-game.

There is a tendency for characters who march on past their sell-by date to become caricatures of themselves - to tread the same ground, growing more stale with each step.

We all practice self-deception to a degree; no man can handle complete honesty without being cut at each turn. There's not enough room in a man's head for sanity alongside each grief, each worry, each terror that he owns. I'm well used to burying such things in a dark cellar and moving on.

I decided the best policy for the now would be to drink myself insensible and hope the morrow had better to offer. The

Dark times call for dark choices. Choose me.

I manage to read about one book a month, all fantasy these days.

You soon learn there's no elegance or dignity in death if you spend time in the castle kitchens. You learn how ugly it is, and how good it tastes.

I took him to be about thirty, but it's hard to tell with fat people: they've no skin spare for wrinkles.

A sensible man may fear certain possibilities, but don't let fear turn possibility into certainty.

In any case I would cut myself a path to the throne even if some bastard-born herder had fathered me on a gutter-whore - genealogy can work for me or I can cut down the family tree and make a battering ram. Either way is good.