The Broken Empire Quotes

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

Clarity of vision is a thing much prized. I find when you turn that clear sight upon yourself - and see through to the truth behind your own actions - it might be better to be blind. ~ Mark Lawrence

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. ~ Mark Lawrence

A time of terror comes. A dark time. The graves continue to open and the Dead King prepares to sail.But the world holds worse things than dead men. A dark time comes. ~ Mark Lawrence

There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. ~ Mark Lawrence

I held to my anger, drank from my well of poison. These things are not good things, but at least they're mine. ~ Mark Lawrence

The pain became my enemy. More than the Count Renar, more than my father's bartering with lives he should have held more precious than crown, or glory, or Jesu on the cross. ~ Mark Lawrence

Dark times call for dark choices. Choose me. ~ Mark Lawrence

When pain bites, men bargain. Boys too. We twist and turn, we plead and beg, we offer our tormentor what he wants so that the hurting will stop. And when there is no torturer to placate, no hooded man with hot irons and tongs, just a burn you can't escape, we bargain with God, or ourselves, depending on the size of our egos ... Take the pain, I said, and I will be a good man. Or if not that, a better man. We all become weasels with enough hurt on us. But I think a small part of it was more than that. A small part was the terrible two-edged sword called experience, cutting away at the cruel child I was, carving out whatever man might yet to come. I promised a better one. Thought I have been known to lie. ~ Mark Lawrence

When you're in a dark place, and your light is going to run out before too long, you get on with things. It's a wonder to me how few people apply that same logic to their lives. ~ Mark Lawrence

We twist and turn, we plead and beg, we offer our tormentor what he wants so that the hurting will stop. And when there is no torturer to placate, no hooded man with hot irons and tongs, just a burn you can't escape, we bargain with God, or ourselves, depending on the size of our egos. I made mock of the dying at Mabberton and now their ghosts watched me burn. Take the pain, I said, and I will be a good man. Or if not that, a better man. We all become weasels with enough hurt on us. But I thing a small part of it was more than that. A small part was that terrible two-edged sword called experience, cutting away at the cruel child I was, carving out whatever man might be yet to come. I promised a better one. Though I have been known to lie. ~ Mark Lawrence

The perfumes of lords and ladies tickled at my nose: lavender and orange oil. On the road, shit has the decency to stink. ~ Mark Lawrence

It's the silence that scares me. It's the blank page on which I can write my own fears. ~ Mark Lawrence

And in the moments of rest, when we orphans faced each other, mud-cheeked, leaning on our forks, there's a camaraderie that builds without you knowing it. ~ Mark Lawrence

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. ~ Mark Lawrence

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

The knife felt like hot iron in my fist. I hated myself for what I was going to do, and just as much for hesitating. I hated myself for the weakness in me. ~ Mark Lawrence

I knew myself broken, to burn over every refusal, to feel my blood rise at the slightest provocation, but knowing and fixing are different things. ~ Mark Lawrence

Pretty armour doesn't make a warrior. ~ Mark Lawrence

Every good story tells at least one lie and holds a secret at its heart. ~ Mark Lawrence, Road Brothers: Tales From The Broken Empire

We rode in silence for a while and I wondered if men were the world's leaves. If as we aged the world filled us with its poisons so as old men, filled to the brim with the bitterest gall, we could fall into hell and take it all with us. Perhaps without death the world would choke on its own evils. ~ Mark Lawrence

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

Brother Row you could trust to make a long shot with a short bow. You could trust him to come out of a knife fight with somebody else's blood on his shirt. You could trust him to lie, to cheat, to steal, and to watch your back. You couldn't trust his eyes though. He had kind eyes, and you couldn't trust them. ~ Mark Lawrence

I wondered once if Corion had put that sickness in me, if I were the tool and he the architect of that violence and cruelty. I wondered if having taken his head, if having grown from boy to man, I would be a better person. I wondered if I might be the man the Nuban wanted me to be, the man Tutor Lundist hoped for. ~ Mark Lawrence

But now I thought of Father, and it felt good to know I could still feel fear. ~ Mark Lawrence

I took the Nuban's bow. I didn't trust the midget to be able to run down any thieves, and besides, I might want to shoot a circus clown or two. Just for laughs. ~ Mark Lawrence

In the end it seems we're just toys, easy to break and hard to mend. ~ Mark Lawrence

We can't be trapped by fear. Lives lived within such walls are just slower deaths. ~ Mark Lawrence

Go fuck yourself,' I said. I kept it pleasant. ~ Mark Lawrence

All men will dig their heels in if pushed enough. All men will reach the point that they say "no" for no reason other than opposition, for no reason other than the word fits their mouth, and tastes as good as it sounds. ~ Mark Lawrence

Men who are certain of everything - well perhaps they're not men at all. ~ Mark Lawrence

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. ~ Mark Lawrence

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

Nothing can be cut away. Even the worst of our memories is part of the foundation that keeps us in the world. ~ Mark Lawrence

If you must run, have something to run toward, so it feels less like cowardice. ~ Mark Lawrence

We came to woodlands, with leaves unfurling on every branch, as if one blow of spring's green hammer had set them exploding from the bud. ~ Mark Lawrence

I kept my voice calm. It wasn't hard, I was calm. Anger carries less horror with it, men understand anger. It promises resolution; maybe bloody resolution, but swift. ~ Mark Lawrence

But I respected his instincts as a killer and I liked the honesty of the man. And who was I to judge? I'd F'ed a necromancer and killed a Pope within the space of a week. ~ Mark Lawrence

What made my loss, my pain, any more important than everyone else's. ~ Mark Lawrence

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

But words are only words and they seldom turn a person from their path unless they want to be turned. ~ Mark Lawrence

They say that time is a great teacher but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. ~ Mark Lawrence

Tell me this," I said. "My world. It's not like the one I read about in the oldest books. When they talk about magic, about ghosts, it's as if they are fairy-tales to frighten children. And yet I have seen the dead walk, seen a boy bring fire with just a thought."
Fexler frowned as if considering how to explain. "Think of reality as a ship whose course is set, whose wheel is locked in place by universal constants. Our greatest achievement, and downfall, was to turn that wheel, just a fraction. The role of the observer was always important - we discovered that. If a tree falls in the wood and no one hears it, then it is both standing and not standing. The cat is both alive and dead."
"Who mentioned a fecking cat? ~ Mark Lawrence

Perhaps I just wanted to know what it was that I wanted. Maybe that is all that growing up means. ~ Mark Lawrence

in the crook of her elbow as she went. Above her, over an apartment building and a tavern, she saw the expanse of a large square building with a flat roof and a single cylinder chimney. It was a tan-brick warehouse with dark broken windows. An abandoned bird's ~ Charlie N. Holmberg

She is a beautiful piece of broken pottery, put back together by her own hands. And a critical world judges her cracks while missing the beauty of how she made herself whole again. ~ J.M. Storm

Break up of some relations sometimes don't just break the connection between to bodies, for someone it can be a disconnect with his soul and disconnect with soul its called "Death ~ Mohammed Zaki Ansari

Eventually, there was a small grunt of assent from Tom, and he curled his warm body behind Baltsaros's. With a gentle hand, he carefully manoeuvred Baltsaros into a suitable position so he could penetrate him. Though he couldn't see Tom, the captain could tell how apprehensive he was. The captain had to laugh. "I'm not made of glass," he said, opening his eyes. Jon's cheek dimpled in the briefest of smiles. Tom mumbled something against his skin; though he didn't catch what it was, it sounded like either a prayer or a curse. Or, he thought with a smile, it could be both. However, his levity was broken a moment later when Tom's cockhead pushed hard against his opening and began to slide tight into his body. ~ Bey Deckard

I am a broken person. And I know exactly where my cracks are and how deep they run. I don't pretend to not be a broken person and therein lies the big difference. Because the truth is, we are all broken in places, but it is those who know exactly where and how they are broken, who also know exactly where and how they are whole! And we may not be whole in all places and in all ways, but we take whatever wholeness that we do have, and we make good of it. And we try hard to work on the broken parts, and we ask for help when we need it. ~ C. JoyBell C.

You have to give to the world the thing that you want the most, in order to fix the broken parts inside you. ~ Eve Ensler

Since that day you walked out of the Frat house with barely any clothes on, I've been calling you mine. Before I'd gotten to know you, I knew I had to make you mine. It only got worse the closer we got. When Cole carried you away from me that day, I realised you weren't mine at all. I. AM. YOURS. When I wake up in the morning, my first thought is of you and every minute for the rest of my day is spent thinking about you in some way or another. ~ Kimberly Lauren

The appeal of magic is that it promises to render objects plastic to the will without one's getting too entangled with them. Treated from arm's length, the object can issue no challenge to the self. According to Freud, this is precisely the condition of the narcissist: he treats objects as props for his fragile ego and has an uncertain grasp of them as having a reality of their own. The clearest contrast to the narcissist that I can think of is the repairman, who must subordinate himself to the broken washing machine, listen to it with patience, notice its symptoms, and then act accordingly. He cannot treat it abstractly; the kind of agency he exhibits is not at all magical. ~ Matthew B. Crawford

I fix what's broken - except in the heart. ~ Bernard Malamud

Change always happens... We adjust to it. Somehow we figure out a way. We straighten what we can or learn how to like something a little crooked. That's how it is. Something breaks, you fix it as best you can. There's always a way to make something better, even if it means sweeping up the broken pieces and starting all over. That's how we keep moving, keep breathing, keep opening our eyes every morning, even when the only thing we know for sure is that we're still alive. ~ Susan Meissner

Power broken into a thousand pieces can be hidden and disowned. If no individual or institution possesses the authority to act without of everybody else in the room, then nobody is at fault if anything goes wrong. ~ Lewis H. Lapham

You'll have to be my conscience." He knew his flaws, and he knew the parts of him that were irrevocably broken. "Mine isn't going to grow back. ~ Nalini Singh

Speak not, move not, but listen, the sky is full of gold. No ripple on the river, no stir in field or fold, All gleams but naught doth glisten, but the far-off unseen sea. Forget days past, heart broken, put all memory by! No grief on the green hillside, no pity in the sky, Joy that may not be spoken fills mead and flower and tree. ~ William Morris

They sat together at a table in the corner of a basement speakeasy, and they drank beer, and Mike related his favorite tale of how he had fallen five stories when a scaffolding gave way under him, how he had broken three ribs but lived to tell it, and Roark spoke of his days in the building trades. Mike did have a real name, which was Sean Xavier Donnigan, but everyone had forgotten it long ago; he owned a set of tools and an ancient Ford, and existed for the sole purpose of traveling around the country from one big construction job to another. People meant very little to Mike, but their performance a great deal. He worshipped expertness of any kind. He loved his work passionately and had no tolerance for anything save for other single-track devotions. He was a master in his own field and he felt no sympathy except for mastery. His view of the world was simple: there were the able and there were the incompetent; he was not concerned with the latter. He loved buildings. He despised, however, all architects. ~ Ayn Rand

But people were stupid. A chronic condition of our society, that so many people somehow thought they were special, the exception to the rule. In this panicked crowd, every rule was being broken. ~ Wildbow

A pastor struggled for years with sexual addiction, eventually becoming so despondent that hospitalized himself. He joined an inpatient group and was mostly silent as others shared.
When he decided not to come one day, the leader found he had fallen back into his addiction the previous night. Against every fiber of his instinct, he came back to the group. He shared how much he despised himself and his hypocritical behavior.
When he saw that others wept for him, the weight of the secret that piled on the shame was broken. As Ortberg puts it, the man was able to taste the grace he taught about. ~ John Ortberg Jr.

And that is why a dog can go to the vet and have a really big operation and have metal pins sticking out of its leg but if it sees a cat it forgets that it has pins sticking out of its leg and chases after the cat. But when a person has an operation it has a picture in its head of the hurt carrying on for months and months. And it has a picture of all the stitches in its leg and the broken bone and the pins and even if it sees a bus it has to catch it doesn't run because it has a picture in its head of the bones crunching together and the stitches breaking and even more pain. ~ Mark Haddon

She had lived in that house fourteen years, and every year she had demanded of John that she be given a pet of some strange exotic breed. Not that she did not have enough animals. She had collected several wild and broken animals that, in a way, had become exotic by their breaking. Their roof would have collapsed from the number of birds who might have lived there if the desert hadn't killed three- quarters of those that tried to cross it. Still every animal that came within a certain radius of that house was given a welcome
the tame, the half born, the wild, the wounded. ~ Michael Ondaatje

You say I'm crazy
'Cause you don't think I know what you've done
But when you call me baby
I know I'm not the only one ~ Pratyussh Singh

The synopsis looked good,
the cover looked nice,
you opened the book,
and began a new life.
You found a new home,
you met some new friends,
you kept on reading,
hoping it would never end.
You danced through the pages,
you sang out the words,
you felt all their joy,
and all their pain and hurt.

The pages cut your fingers,
the words cut your heart,
like the author had a knife,
and was tearing your soul apart.
You laughed with the characters,
and with them you cried,
you fell in love with them, too,
and with them you died,
and when the book reached its end,
and your broken heart couldn't heal,
you suddenly realized that
It's not real ~ Unknown

Who sent you?" Sicarius asked.
Amaranthe considered carefully before answering. If he simply meant to scare her into providing information, he could have started with a knife against her throat. No, he had almost broken her neck. He had intended to kill her but stopped mid-motion. Why? And would he continue where he had left off if she answered incorrectly?
"Commander of the Armies Hollowcrest."
Given the previous demonstration of how he could see through lies, the truth seemed a safer choice. Besides, she found herself reluctant to die to protect Hollowcrest's anonymity.
"Why?"
"To kill you."
"That I gathered. Why did he send you? What did you do to anger him?"
"I ... Uhm, what?"
"It was a suicide mission. You must have suspected. ~ Lindsay Buroker

One morning I was reading the story of Jesus' feeding of the five thousand. The disciples could find only five loaves of bread and two fishes. 'Let me have them,' said Jesus. He asked for all. He took them, said the blessing, and broke them before He gave them out. I remembered what a chapel speaker ... had said: 'If my life is broken when given to Jesus, it is because pieces will feed a multitude, while a loaf will satisfy only a little lad.' ~ Elisabeth Elliot

From the moment I saw her I knew this one was worth a broken heart. ~ Atticus Poetry

In May, when the grass was so green it hurt to look at it, the air so overpoweringly sweet you had to go in and turn on the television just to dull your senses- that's when Claire knew it was time to look for the asparagus in the pastures. If it rained she wondered if she should check our secret places for morels. In June, when the strawberries ripened, we made hay and the girls rode on top of the wagon. I was ever mindful of the boy who had fallen off and broken his neck. In July, the pink raspberries, all in brambles in the woods and growing up our front porch, turned black and tart. In August, the sour apples were the coming thing. In September there were the crippled-up pears in the old orchard. In October, we picked the pumpkin and popcorn. And all winter, when there was snow, we lived for the wild trip down the slopes on the toboggan. ~ Jane Hamilton

There are broken people in the world, Samantha. But you're not one of them. Dinged-up maybe, but not broken, and definitely not beyond repair. ~ Rebecca Yarros

The way destiny forgot
To etch home on her palms,
The broken compass
Also forgot to point towards north. ~ Ruqayya Shaheed

Hearts got broken every day. Nobody died from that. But it did kind of fade the sunlight and drain the color from the days. ~ Josh Lanyon

All the same, my depression and self-hatred, my desire to mutilate myself with broken bottles, my numbness and crying fits, my inability to get out of bed for days and days, the feeling of the world moving in to crush me, went on and on. But I knew I wouldn't go mad, even if that release, that letting-go, was a freedom I desired. I was waiting for myself to heal. ~ Hanif Kureishi

Someone is pounding on a door within you and hoping for an answer. They want to tell us the secret tale of ourselves. The stories we've never told.

Some African tribes believe if you were to tell someone your entire story the audience would actually become you. From then on, the only life the teller would have would be in and through the listener. Some believe this is the relationship between Jesus and his disciples.

How I wished for my story to be blemish free. How I wished to be a good-natured soul giving back to the world, regardless of how broken I was. In the end, it's those things we are willing to die to change that sculpt our story.

Some people open the floodgates of their minds and hearts so memories burst forth like water through a breached dam. Pieces of our lives can be found among the floating wreckage, and somewhere, the presence of God hovers over the surface of the deep.

Inside, I am treading, biding my time, waiting for the magic I thought I owned as a child. Many seek this enchantment. I sought my wife, daughter and the power to conjure hope. ~ Christopher Hawke

Saro's love, his life and his loss had forged me, softening me to life and strengthening me in the broken places. ~ Tembi Locke

Please Say A Prayer For All Who are Broken Hearted And Grief In Despair. May They Find Peace In The Loving Arms Of God And Comfort In Our Prayers. May They Pray For Us When It's Our Turn To Need Help In Our Own Despair. ~ Timothy Pina

I write about the power of trying, because I want to be okay with failing. I write about generosity because I battle selfishness. I write about joy because I know sorrow. I write about faith because I almost lost mine, and I know what it is to be broken and in need of redemption. I write about gratitude because I am thankful - for all of it. ~ Kristin Armstrong

Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, a little too heartily, "So this is the library." There certainly couldn't be any doubt on that score; never had a room so resembled popular preconception. The walls were paneled in rich, dark wood, although the finish had worn off the edges in spots, where books had scraped against the wood in passing one too many times. A whimsical iron staircase curved to the balcony, the steps narrowing into pie-shaped wedges that promised a broken neck to the unwary. I tilted my head back, dizzied by the sheer number of books, row upon row, more than the most devoted bibliophile could hope to consume in a lifetime of reading.

In one corner, a pile of crumbling paperbacks - James Bond, I noticed, squinting sideways, in splashy seventies covers - struck a slightly incongruous note. I spotted a moldering pile of Country Life cheek by jowl with a complete set of Trevelyan's History of England in the original Victorian bindings. The air was rich with the smell of decaying paper and old leather bindings. Downstairs, where I stood with Colin, the shelves made way for four tall windows, two to the east and two to the north, all hung with rich red draperies checked with blue, in the obverse of the red-flecked blue carpet. On the west wall, the bookshelves surrendered pride of place to a massive fireplace, topped with a carved hood to make Ivanhoe proud, and large enough to roast a serf. In short, the library was a Gothic fantasy. ~ Lauren Willig

Nothing's
broken, nevertheless I'm skinless,
the gentlest touch would gut me. ~ Margaret Atwood

In Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, ~ Anonymous

Though they were separated by two screens and vast amounts of empty space, she could feel the link being forged between them in that look. A bond that couldn't be broken. Their eyes had met for the first time, and by the look of pure amazement on his face, she knew he felt it too.
Heat crept up into her cheeks. Her hands began to shake.
"Aces," Carswell Thorne murmured. Dropping his feet to the ground, he leaned forward to inspect her closer. "Is that all hair?"
The bond snapped, the fantasy of one perfect true-love moment disintegrating around her. ~ Marissa Meyer

I promise to write for the broken who still choose to love. ~ Nitya Prakash

The wind whistles down into the skyscraper-bound canyons, across the broad expanses of the avenues and the narrow confines of the streets, where lives unfolded in secret, day in, day out: Sometimes a man sighs for want of love. Sometimes a child cries for the dropped lollipop, its sweetness barely tasted. Sometimes the girl gasps as the train screams into the station, shaken by how close she'd allowed herself to wander to the edge. Sometimes the drunk raises weary eyes to the rows of building rendered beautiful by a brief play of sunlight. "Lord?" he whispers into the held breath between taxi horns. The light catches on a city spire, fracturing for a second into glorious rays before the clouds move in again. The drunk lowers his eyes. "Lord, Lord…" he sobs, as if answering his own broken prayer. […] Another day closes. The sun sinks low on the horizon. It slips below the Hudson, smearing the West Side of Manhattan in a slick of gold. Night arrives for its watchful shift. The neon city bursts its daytime seams, and the great carnival of dreams begins again. ~ Libba Bray

He's the yin to my yang. The down to my up. The crazy to my normal.

The damaged pieces to all my broken parts. ~ Ashley Jade

We look at your eyes. The eyes carry the wounds. The eyes know damage. Damaged people recognize other damaged people, and we let you in. We are kindred. - Broken Places ~ Rachel Thompson

Broken Wings Don't break a bird's wings and then tell it to fly. Don't break a heart and then tell it to love. Don't break a soul and then tell it to be happy. Don't see the worst in a person and expect them to see the best in you. Don't judge people and expect them to stand by your side. Don't play with fire and expect to stay perfectly safe. Life is about giving and taking. You cannot expect to give bad and receive good. You cannot expect to give good and receive bad. Does it happen? Yes, but don't make that an excuse for you to keep doing what you know is wrong. Don't blame life for what you do. That is so selfish and ignorant on your behalf. ~ Najwa Zebian

The worst advice? 'Don't listen to the critics.' I think that you really ought to listen to the critics, because sometimes they're telling you something is broken that you can fix. ~ Stephen King

The very longing for contentment that ought to drive us to simplicity of life and labors of love contents itself instead with the broken cisterns of prosperity and comfort. ~ John Piper

As surely as spring followed winter, new life followed death, fighting for its place on the earth. Let man do his worst, yet still the tentative shoots of faith and hope sprouted the ruins of shattered lives and broken dreams. Resurrection was real, after all. ~ J.M. Hochstetler

Having spent all of my decision-making years as a Pagan of one stripe or another, I have long found it condescending at best to assume one cannot worship the old gods or believe in magick without breaking out the leather bracers, wings, or Ye Broken Olde English. ~ Thomm Quackenbush

For me, the last few years of the postmodern era have seemed a bit like the way you feel when you're in high school and your parents go on a trip, and you throw a party. You get all your friends over and throw this wild disgusting fabulous party. For a while it's great, free and freeing, parental authority gone and overthrown, a cat's-away-let's-play Dionysian revel. But then time passes and the party gets louder and louder, and you run out of drugs, and nobody's got any money for more drugs, and things get broken and spilled, and there's cigarette burn on the couch, and you're the host and it's your house too, and you gradually start wishing your parents would come back and restore some fucking order in your house. It's not a perfect analogy, but the sense I get of my generation of writers and intellectuals or whatever is that it's 3:00 A.M. and the couch has several burn-holes and somebody's thrown up in the umbrella stand and we're wishing the revel would end. The postmodern founders' patricidal work was great, but patricide produces orphans, and no amount of revelry can make up for the fact that writers my age have been literary orphans throughout our formative years. We're kind of wishing some parents would come back. And of course we're uneasy about the fact that we wish they'd come back--I mean, what's wrong with us? Are we total pussies? Is there something about authority and limits we actually need? And then the uneasiest feeling of all, as we start gradually to real ~ David Foster Wallace