Martyn Stanley Quotes

The trouble was, love was such a strong emotion. It made everything else unimportant. It grabbed you and imprisoned you in the moment.
Deathsworn Arc 4: The Temple of the Mad God

Interesting Avil, the priests and the acolytes of the various religions and temples of Torea build their whole lives on a lie. At first, as children they believe it. Maybe as they grow older and more wise they see the absurdness of their beliefs, but by that time they have invested time and emotional energy into those beliefs, then seeing them crumble and fall apart would be too hard for them to bear. So the protect the lie, they shore it up with more lies and they ebb out their short lives, knowing what they preach is untrue, but preaching it all the same ... Almost as if preaching it hard enough will make it true ... Are they trying to convince their congregation? Or themselves? You are wiser than you look Avil.

Enough Truthseeker! Do not utter another word about religion! We have debated it to death! If you so much as mention it again while I am present, I will resume my heart-carving. Not for the honour of Avanti, but to shut you up!"

~ Vexis Zaelwarsh to Brael Truthseeker
Deathsworn Arc 5: The Temple of the Mad God
Martyn Stanley

On the revelation that there are no gods or afterlife:-

"I do not 'like' the truth any more than you Avil, or anyone. I wrestled with it for a long time, for a while I was distraught, desperate to find that my research had been wrong - the more I searched, the deeper I delved the more clear it became that the truth was what it is. After much reflection, I came to the conclusion that though accepting the truth is hard, moving on from that, it becomes clear that the important thing is to make the world we live in a better place. We get one life, it's our duty to make the most of it."

~Brael Truthseeker of House Krazic
Deathsworn Arc 2 : The Verkreath Horror

Our lives are a flicker of light in the shadowy darkness of eternity. Disease, famine, war, death, sorrow... Life is a cycle of pain, perhaps the one thing we should do with our short lives is to try to leave the world a better place than we entered it?'"

~Vexis Zaelwarsh - Low Priestess to Avanti
-Deathsworn Arc 4: Rise of the Archmage

As the cauldron bubbled she mused at how she missed prayer. It had been cathartic, and helped her to understand her own thoughts and feelings. She'd thought there was a god answering back too. Now she couldn't conceive that there existed any great spirits or gods beyond the veil of reality the world resided in. Even so, she longed to pray. Could she pray with nothing to pray to? Prayer meant hope, it was hope carefully crafted into specifics."

~Vexis Zaelwarsh - Low Priestess to Avanti
-Deathsworn Arc 4: Rise of the Archmage"
― Martyn Stanley