Red Rising Saga Quotes

You asked, what do I fear? I fear a man who believes in good. For he can excuse any evil. ~ Pierce Brown

The situation of Leh is a grand one, the great Kailas range, with its glaciers and snowfields, rising just behind it to the north, its passes alone reaching an altitude of nearly 18,000 feet; while to the south, across a gravelly descent and the Indus Valley, rise great red ranges dominated by snow-peaks exceeding 21,000 feet in altitude. ~ Isabella Bird

'Found the sheep too easy to kill?' I ask. 'Where'd you get the weapon?'
'Born with them.' His fingernails are bloody. ~ Pierce Brown

The headlights of parked cars shone through the rain, and the sidewalks extended, empty, into the darkness. Underground, the sewers surged like rivers, and a few blocks away, sirens blared. He was no longer aware of his heart or thoughts, only the image of a sunken face staring up from a well, the paleness rising through the water like polished bone. A ringed hand reached toward it, but as the fingers approached, the face would sink away, its eyes opening, closing, and the droplets of red falling like leaves. He was a child running through an autumn cemetery, leaping over cast iron fences, the rain bleeding into the tombstones and the roofs of the mausoleums, his legs following the wings of a crow, flapping to the north. A hedge of withered roses stood between him and his childhood house. He tripped and grazed his cheek on a manhole, his red blooming in the water. The sun set behind the hill; the house turned black - abandoned and derelict - and Chris knew he had to keep running, ahead, into the unknown. ~ Cory Ingram

SPRING Somewhere a black bear has just risen from sleep and is staring down the mountain. All night in the brisk and shallow restlessness of early spring I think of her, her four black fists flicking the gravel, her tongue like a red fire touching the grass, the cold water. There is only one question: how to love this world. I think of her rising like a black and leafy ledge to sharpen her claws against the silence of the trees. Whatever else my life is with its poems and its music and its glass cities, it is also this dazzling darkness coming down the mountain, breathing and tasting; all day I think of her - her white teeth, her wordlessness, her perfect love. ~ Mary Oliver

Mr. Rohan," she heard Beatrix ask, "are you going to marry my sister?"
Amelia choked on her tea and set the cup down. She sputtered and coughed into her napkin.
"Hush, Beatrix," Win murmured.
"But she's wearing his ring - "
Poppy clamped her hand over Beatrix's mouth. "Hush!"
"I might," Cam replied. His eyes sparkled with mischief as he continued. "I find your sister a bit lacking in humor. And she doesn't seem particularly obedient. On the other hand - "
One set of French doors flew open, accompanied by the sound of breaking glass. Everyone on the back terrace looked up in startlement, the men rising from their chairs.
"No," came Win's soft cry.
Merripen stood there, having dragged himself from his sickbed. He was bandaged and disheveled, but he looked far from helpless. He looked like a maddened bull, his dark head lowered, his hands clenched into massive fists. And his stare, promising death, was firmly fixed on Cam.
There was no mistaking the bloodlust of a Roma whose kinswoman had been dishonored.
"Oh, God," Amelia muttered.
Cam, who stood beside her chair, glanced down at her questioningly. "Did you say something to him?"
Amelia turned red as she recalled her blood-spotted nightgown and the maid's expression. "It must have been servants' talk."
Cam stared at the enraged giant with resignation. "You may be in luck," he said to Amelia. "It looks as if our betrothal is going to end prematurely." ~ Lisa Kleypas

We never asked to bow. Who is he to say Red and Browns toiling to death is for the greater good? Who is he to say Pink children being harvested for rape, Obsidians and Grays for battle, is a necessity? How can he sit there and say that he alone knows what is best for me, for my family? It's not his right ~ Pierce Brown

In her red dress and black boots, she stood straight and tall, blue eyes flashing with righteous fury, breasts rising and falling rapidly. Se had never looked more beautiful. ~ Trinity Faegen

You have made me give up the hair Father gave me, the eyes Mother left me, the Color I was born to, so I will keep the name they granted me, and you can make it work. ~ Pierce Brown

Midsummer Night was roasting hot. The shore, of red granite, glowed with the heat; the dark blood of the earth seemed to be rising from below. There was a sharp, unbearable smell of birds, of cod, of green decaying seaweed. Through the mist the huge ruddy sun loomed nearer and nearer. And in the sea, dark blood welled up to meet it - in bloated, rearing, huge white waves.
Night. The mouth of the bay between two cliffs was like a window. A window shutting out curious eyes with a white shade-white woolly fog. And all that you could see was that behind it something red was happening. ("The North") ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

Dear Gris, if there's one thing I can't abide it's a bad poet. ~ Cat Hellisen

Bright beads of red are rising through the ink, Hearts-blood bubbles smearing out into the black stream ~ Sylvia Plath

You'll want all your strength for the wedding night."

I cannot think why I should need strength," she said, ignoring a host of spine-tingling images rising in her mind's eye. "All I have to do is lie there."

"Naked," he said grimly.

"Truly?" She shot him a glance from under her lashes. "Well, if I must, I must, for you have the advantage of experience in these matters. Still, I do wish you'd told me sooner. I should not have put the modiste to so much trouble about the negligee."

"The what?"

"It was ghastly expensive," she said, "but the silk is as fine as gossamer, and the eyelet work about the neckline is exquisite. Aunt Louisa was horrified. She said only Cyprians wear such things, and it leaves nothing to the imagination."

Jessica heard him suck in his breath, felt the muscular thigh tense against hers.

"But if it were left to Aunt Louisa," she went on,"I should be covered from my chin to my toes in thick cotton ruffled with monstrosities with little bows and rosebuds. Which is absurd, when an evening gown reveals far more, not to mention--"

"What color?" he asked. His low voice had roughened.

"Wine red," she said, "With narrow black ribbons threaded through the neckline. Here." She traced a plunging U over her bosom. "And there's the loveliest openwork over my...well, here." She drew her finger over the curve of her breast a bare inch above the nipple. "And openwor ~ Loretta Chase

When a slave must be executed, the slaves from those plantations nearby are brought to watch; a deterrent, aye? against future ill-considered action." "Indeed," Jamie said politely. "I believe that was the Crown's notion in executing my grandsire on Tower Hill after the Rising. Verra effective, too; all my relations have been quite well behaved since." I had lived long enough among Scots to appreciate the effects of that little jab. Jamie might have come at Campbell's request, but the grandson of the Old Fox did no man's bidding lightly - nor necessarily held English law in high regard. MacNeill had got the message, all right; the back of his neck flushed turkey-red, but Farquard Campbell looked amused. He uttered a short, dry laugh before turning round. ~ Diana Gabaldon

For a long, breathless moment we wait, time spinning into an eternity, while the excitement in my chest bursts. As the red curtain rises, my mother releases my hand and steps forward...Because of the stage lights, my mother's silhouette is all I see as the velvet curtain makes its silent ascent into the darkness. The blinding spotlight looks like a sun rising on the horizon, and though I can't see the people in the audience, the scent of perfume and expensive cigar smoke assures me of their presence, as does the excessively polite, well-bred clapping. ~ Teri Brown

Mary bring out your umbrella -
The sun shines down on this fine, fine day
But the ashes raining down forever
Are going to turn your hair to gray.
Mary keep your oars a-steady
Sail away on the rising flood
Keep your candle at the ready
Red tides can't be told from blood.
- "Miss Mary" (a common child's clapping game, dating from the time of the blitz), from Pattycake and Beyond: A History of Play ~ Lauren Oliver

The horizon is touched with red: the sun is rising, a rusty colour, the colour of old blood, and I'm so filled with fear it is an agony, a shredding feeling, worse than any nightmare I've ever had. ~ Lauren Oliver

All my people sing of are memories. And so I will remember this death. It will burden me as it does not burden my fellow students
I must not let that change. I must not become like them. I'll remember that every sin, every death, every sacrifice, is for freedom. ~ Pierce Brown

You are the wolf that howls and bites. i am the mustang that nuzzles the hand People know they can work with me. With you? Hell, kill or be killed. ~ Pierce Brown

A great paradox...red states are poorere and have more teen mothers, more divorce, worse health, more obesity, more trauma-related deaths, more low-birth-weight babies, and lower school enrollment....The gap in life expectancey between Louisiana (75.7) and Connecticut (80.8) is the same as that between the U.S. and Nicaragua....And the problem transcends race; an average black in Maryland lives four years longer, earns twice as much, and is twice as likely to have a college degree as a black in Louisiana. And whites in Louisiana are wrose off than whites in Maryland or anywhere else outside Mississippi. Louisiana has suffered many environmental problems too: there are nearly 400 miles of low, flat, subsiding coastline, adn the state loses a football field-size patch of wetland every hour. It is threatened by rising sea levels and severe hurricanes, which the world's top scientists connect to climate change. ~ Arlie Russell Hochschild

Pliny is a leech," I say. "A liar as much as you're an honest man."
"And that makes him dangerous. Liars make the best promises. ~ Pierce Brown

Slowly the truth is loading
I'm weighted down with love
Snow lying deep and even
Strung out and dreaming of

Night falling on the city
Quite something to behold
Don't it just look so pretty
This disappearing world

We're threading hope like fire
Down through the desperate blood
Down through the trailing wire
Into the leafless wood

Night falling on the city
Quite something to behold
Don't it just look so pretty
This disappearing world
This disappearing world

I'll be sticking right there with it
I'll be by your side
Sailing like a silver bullet
Hit 'em 'tween the eyes
Through the smoke and rising water
Cross the great divide
Baby till it all feels right

Night falling on the city
Sparkling red and gold
Don't it just look so pretty
This disappearing world"~David Gray ~ David Gray

My chair rolls to a stop. his voice cut short, followed by a thump and sliding sound. My wheelchair rolls forward again. I look back and see Ragnar pushing it innocently along. Sevro isn't in the hallway behind us. I frown, wondering where he went, till he bursts out of a side passage.
"You! Troll!" Sevro shouts. "I'm a terrorist warlord! Stop throwing me. You made me drop my candy!" Sevro looks at the floor of the hallway. "Wait. Where is it? Dammit, Ragnar. Where is my peanut bar? You know how many people I had to kill to get that? Six! Six!"
Ragnar chews quietly above me, and though I'm probably mistaken, I think I see him smile. ~ Pierce Brown

Sometimes time can play tricks. One moment it idles by, an hour can seem a lifetime, such as when sitting by the river at dusk watching the bats snatching insects above the limpid waters; the breaching fish causing ringed ripples and a satisfying plop. Other times, time flashes by in an immodest fashion. So it is with the start of war. First time quivers with the last strum of a wonderful peace, the note holding in the air, mysterious and haunting, filling the listener with awe. Then, with a rising crescendo the terror starts with uncouth haste; with a boom the listener is shaken from their reverie and delivered into the servitude, of an ear-shattering cacophony. ~ M.A. Lossl

I do not sing. I am made for other things.
My death is senseless. It is love ~ Pierce Brown

A lot of times, I faced bullies - or the 'big dogs' at school. What I wanted 'Red Rising' to be is not necessarily an indictment on bullies, but it reflects my experiences and attitudes that I had with bullies growing up. ~ Pierce Brown

I looked out the hall window across from me as I stood leaning against the wall, and saw the bars on the outside of the windows. The rain trickled down the reinforced misted milk-glass in a constant deluge of melancholy rivulets. It was getting cold - the shadows, the rising turbulent winds, the drifting red and orange leaves were returning once more. I tuned out the sounds of the doctors voices. Soon, I couldn't make out the words they were saying as definite signals meant to convey something. Their words became a dim humming, a song drifting along the periphery of my awareness. And it was then, I knew I would be able to leave. I would go back to my room and take out the violet silk dress, the monstrous talisman I had created, and I would look at it. I might give it away after all. I need to let her go for all the ghosts she carried within her every measured stitch. ~ ~Theresa Griffin Kennedy~

Vampires, contrary to popular belief, don't incinerate when exposed to sunlight. If that were true, there would be a heck of a lot more stories about spontaneous combustion around the world. They are, however, very sensitive to sunlight and their skin cannot take long term exposure without damaging and burning it, which was painful. From Vampire Princess Rising book two of the Winters Saga ~ Jami Brumfield

I'd like to hear five recordings of Louis Armstrong playing and singing "What Did I Do to Be so Black and Blue"-all at the same time. Sometimes now I listen to Louis while I have my favorite dessert of vanilla ice cream and sloe gin. I pour the red liquid over the white mound, watching it glisten and the vapor rising as Louis bends that military instrument into a beam of lyrical sound. ~ Ralph Ellison

Back at the cottage we explored the topography of my body; twigs in my hair, calves striped red and my skirt smudged in meadowtones. The forest underlined me, accentuated me, illustrated me. I felt alive in that midnight village whose dark places left their signatures on my skin, whose bites still hummed around my wrists. I didn't notice till then the thousand nettle stings rising like pearls; burning bracelets that my love kissed and rubbed with dock leaves; a folk remedy painting my pulse points green; honorary stalks. ~ Jalina Mhyana

It was not without a certain wild pleasure I ran before the wind, delivering my trouble of mind to the measureless air-torrent thundering through space. Descending the laurel walk, I faced the wreck of a chestnut-tree; it stood up, black and riven: the trunk, split down the centere, gasped ghastly. The cloven halves were not broken for each other, for the firm base and strong roots kept them unsundered below; through communtiy of vitality was destroyed -- the sap could flow no more: their great boughs on each side were dead, and next winter's tempests would be sure to fell one or both to earth: as yet, however, they might be said to form one tree -- a ruin, but and entire ruin.

'You did right to hold fast to each other,' I said: as if the monster splinters were living things, and could hear me. 'I think, scathed as you look, and charred and scorched, there must be a little sense of life in you yet, rising out of that adhesion at the faithful, honest roots: you will never have green leaves more -- never more see birds making nests and singing idylls in your boughs; the time of pleasure and love is over with you; but you are not desolate: each of you has a comrade to sympathize with him in his decay.' As I looked up at them, the moon appeared momentarily in that part of the sky which filled their fissure; her disc was blood-red and half overcast; she seemed to throw on me one bewildered, dreary glance, and buried herself again instantly in the deep drift of cloud. T ~ Charlotte Bronte

Red is rising, Mickey. ~ Pierce Brown