Pierce Brown Dark Age Quotes

Life is meant to be felt. Else why live? Valleys make the mountains.

Well, here I am, you deviant bitch. Here I bloody am. The motherfucking consequence.

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

The tragedy of the gifted is the belief they are entitled to greatness, Lysander. As a human, you are entitled only to death.

I no longer trust stillness. Stillness is the enemy taking careful aim.

A moving mind is always fed. At rest, mine eats itself.

Until then, endure, my love. Endure.

I’ll never get used to seeing the fear Sevro wakes in people. Deep down they know Darrow is operating on a framework of logic. No one, not even me, believes that Sevro is completely sane.

The key is having a long memory for the sweet, and a short one for the bitter.

But the measure of a man is not the fear he sows in his enemies. It is the hope he gives his friends.

Get him inside somewhere and keep that man alive.” “Man?” Screwface laughs. “Hic est Lupus, motherfucker.

Is a man a coward if he realizes that bravery is just a myth the old tell the young so they line up for the meatgrinder?

One must worry about the strength of a principle when it must compromise itself so often to survive.

During war, the laws are silent.

But that is the noble lie of demokracy, isn’t it? The belief in humanity, even though humanity is a screaming, selfish mob. I love humans, truly. But humanity …” She shivers.

The man is broke, but he is not allowed to break.

There will dawn a day when these hostile hours, these days of hatred and violence, seem the faintest of memories, but dark and steep and long is the road up out of hell. So do not tire, do not despair, do not abandon your brethren, and do not forget that through this darkness we and we alone carry the light of freedom. We must defend it with every cell in our bodies. If not now, when? If not us, who?

You will be hated and you will hate. You will love and be loved. You will fall and you will rise. Never will you know peace, but you will know joy.

Matter, how tiny my share Time, how brief my allotment Fate, how small my roll to play Self, all that can be mastered

There’s never a right call, just people who make the hard ones.

But you don't get the wolf by the tongue without reaching through its teeth.

Fear is the torrent. The raging river. To fight it is to break and drown. But to stand astride it is to see it, feel it, and use its course for your own whims.

I continue to exists, only because with existence there is still hope.

But in the kingdom of death, amidst ramparts of bodies and wind all of screams, there is a king, and his name is not Lune. It is Reaper.

Forget malice or anger. All should beware the wrath of an offended soul.

He’s not really a Goblin. He’s actually very sweet.

It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.

Love may give one wings, but everything burns when it flies too close to the sun.

I hope you loved and loathed this story. I hope you read into the early morning, well past any reasonable hour, and that you come along with me for the conclusion of this little tale, and many more that are yet to be written.

Neither time nor space can sever the strands of life between those we love, not really.

Self-pity is the plebeian’s luxury. All that occurs is either endurable or unendurable. If it is endurable, endure it. If it is unendurable, follow your mother.

He’s drunk, sure; but functioning alcoholics are a gift from the gods. They’re never quite out of the game.

That’s how Sevro is. Betray him and you’re purged from existence.

But I believed the myth of war. Worse, I thought myself special. Immune to the horrors lesser men face.

Sarcastic ripostes are seldom clever enough to prove that they are little more than the desperate cries for validation of a petty and insecure mind.

I knew war was dreadful, but I did not expect to fear it. How can anyone not, when death is just a blind giant with scissors?

As a mob they were a single organism. In fear, they divide. In death, they become lonely as I weave them into my twitching meat carpet.

I find myself proud of them as I laugh with the mad shaman, because in all this stupid, greedy world, the spirit comes alive when you see someone say, no more.

When falls the Rain, be brave. Be brave.

Sometimes it’s better to let a wheel squeak than break the cart trying to fix it.

I fear you think your strength lies in your darkness. But the measure of a man is not the fear he sows in his enemies. It is the hope he gives his friends.

War is our time. Sevro thought he could escape it. I thought I could end it. But our enemy is like the Hydra. Cut off one head, two more sprout. They will not sue for peace. They will not surrender. Their heart must be excised, their will to fight ground to the finest dust.

I kept looking for hope in the world. Expecting the world to supply deliverance if I plucked the right chords. Demanding that it supply validation to my labor if I just gave enough effort. But that is not the nature of the world. Its nature is to consume. In time, it will consume us all, and the spheres will spin until they too are consumed when our sun dies. Maybe that is the point of it. Knowing that though one day darkness will cover all, at least your eyes were open to see moments of light.

This is the Noble Lie. Every frayed nerve, every quaking cell, screams in horror, urging me to crawl out of the tube, to escape this insanity. Is a man a coward if he realizes that bravery is just a myth the old tell the young so they line up for the meatgrinder? My first toy was a wooden sword. Adults think it adorable.

It is to remember how few people you know. How many do not know you. How many will soon forget you. How many praise you today to offer contempt tomorrow. Permanence of fame, power, dominion of the individual, are illusions. All that will be measured, all that will last, is your mastery of yourself.

Only a fool gives a gift when the first is valued so little,

Fear those who seek your company for their own vanity. As soon as you eclipse them in the mirror, it won’t be the mirror they break.

a man is his actions, not his blood.

I let fear drive my hope away. I let war become me, and my men followed.

I find myself in tears, and I can't reason why. There are things you know, but when revealed to be known by others can make the world shine in a peculiar way.

I've spent enough time in the past, love. The dead need no tears. They don't rest easier for our vengeance, or our guilt.' She shrugs. 'They'd want us to live.

Silenius walked his stiletto. I’ve no doubt we’ll walk ours.” “What makes you so confident?” “Well, for starters, we have smaller feet.

Don't you find it peculiar? The human conviction that we are the heirs of history instead of paragraphs that are almost over.

Woe to those who cross my shadow.

We all want to be special. It must ache to discover you are not.

There is evil in us, as there is good. But we do not regret our good as we do our evil. So we know what we are, my daughter. We know what we are.

As a human, I am entitled only to death.

We put our heads together and recite our mantra. Matter, how tiny my share Time, how brief my allotment Fate, how small my roll to play Self, all that can be mastered

She listens because she’s heard enough noise to know that truth, if it ever appears, creeps in on quiet little feet.

How sad I didn’t cherish a moment there with my son. All moments are like that sandcastle, it seems. There is no permanent happy future. There is no Vale. It all washes away.

All my life, I've tamed myself to not frighten others. Sometimes it is fun to let the lion out.

Hope is an opiate, not a plan.

Matter, how tiny my share. Time, how brief my allotment. Fate, how small my roll to play. Self, All that can be mastered.

The waves crash all around the roots of the building. Both were made by man. Perhaps at first in hope, to give our species a new home to live and to love. But in time, I don’t know when, their creation became a vanity of will, and in the shadow of that vanity, man grew lesser for having more. Lesser for mastering the keys of creation, because he mistook himself for god, and cared less for his people, and more that his works endured.

So tell me, why kill passions with zoladone?” I glance at Aja’s razor. “Makes life’s flow a bit smoother.” “Poor little man,” she mocks. “Life is meant to be felt. Else why live? Valleys make the mountains.

Laughter spews from between my teeth. I would die for the truth that all men are created equal. But in the kingdom of death, amidst ramparts of bodies and wind all of screams, there is a king, and his name is not Lune. It is Reaper.

No god listens. There are only men. And what one does, another may undo. That is my only religion. That of the hand and the lever.

Because hope is an opiate, not a plan.

You don't get the wolf by the tongue without reaching through it's teeth.

A man may run, but none has escaped his fate. Yet.

The tragedy of the gifted is the belief they are entitled to greatness. As a human, you are entitled only to death.

They call her Six, meaning she’s always got your back.

But we need shelter. Me probably even more than Victra’s newborn will. Thing will probably come out with fangs and a silk cloak.

Dreamers die bad.

I’ve spent enough time in the past, love. The dead need no tears. They don’t rest easier for our vengeance, or our guilt.

It’s not the bark that counts, oldboy. It’s the bite.

There are things you know, but when revealed to be known by others can make the world shine in a peculiar way.

I once thought the greatest sin of war was violence. It isn’t. The greatest sin is it requires good men to become practical.

Highest on the wall, in a place of honor, is the slingBlade I used at the Institute. I look at it for a long time before I take it down. It is far heavier than my razor and far smaller than I remember. I swing it till it makes a swish swish. I laughed at him when I saw it there the first time, laughed even harder when I found out how much trouble he went through to track it down. But I think I skipped past the part that mattered—how much the blade meant to him. With his father always away, always secretive and frightened to show his love, that blade gave Sevro something to follow. Something to dedicate his life to. Until he found something else.

With his death imminent, the worlds feel emptier. Almost as cavernous as they did when Cassius fell. One by one, the titans of my youth disappear, and freed from their shadow, I do not feel liberated. I feel bereft.

Onward, Valkyrie!” I scream as wind pulls my lips back from my teeth. My gravBoots accelerate with a twist of my toes, and I dive toward the vanguard, streaking past Sefi and Valdir, filled with righteous glory as I tear toward the burning mouth of an open mine, unscathed through tongues of fire, and pierce the crust of the world to land amongst towering behemoths of metal. They turn their glowing evil red eyes toward me, and I laugh when they do not fire, for I am a spirit warrior and I point my rifle at them, pull the trigger, and shit down my leg, because I am alone amongst a pack of hunterkiller robots and it is no rifle in my hand, it is only a mop. Then Sefi and Valdir land, and the world goes mad.

From a distance, death seems the end of a story. But when you are near, when you can smell the burning skin, see the entrails, you see death for what it is. A traumatic cauterization of a life thread. No purpose. No conclusion. Just snip.

...he doubts me because the old do not remember the necessities of youth. They see only the years on our horizon to which they think we are entitled. But we are entitled only to the moment, and owe nothing to the future except that we follow our convictions.

In the room, I feel my father and mother, my sister and my brothers. The joy we had is no lesser for having ended in horror. It is not gone, as I thought it was. It is here. In these moments that are larger than the world itself. They were alive. They lived. They were loved.

Together you and I... we've broken worlds. Who can do what we have done? What our men have done? Yet we put ourselves at the mercy of rats. We free them. Protect them. Die for them. And when we turn our backs, they unveil their little teeth and gnaw at us one bite at a time. And when we turn to face them, they cheer, and we pretend their gnawing hasn't made us weaker. Rats cannot even govern their own appetite. How can they govern themselves?

Atalantia thought she could steal my Imperator. That her Fear Knight could keep my friend as a toy for torture. That I would simply run back to Luna and let my men die. That she could steal my son and there would be no consequences. Well, here I am, you deviant bitch. Here I bloody am. The motherfucking consequence.

Wanting lowColors to be equal to Peerless in warfare is not the same as them being equal.

What good is being smarter than everyone if no one listens? Is this how my father felt? My brother? Is evil born of pure frustration?

So many concessions in the name of necessity. So many horrors in the name of liberty.

I am not here. I am no physical being. Electricity tethered to carbon. I am a pattern. And so is the world.

Stupidity is not a victimless crime.

The more blessed the creature, the less they question life. She is like Valdir and his big muscles this way. Blindly forward with purpose. Guided by the trough of expectation

Serpent will strangle wolf. Lion will battle lion. Darkness will battle light. Sister murder brother. Son murder father. Father murder daughter.

He put his ear to Pax's chest to listen to his heartbeat. He told me then what he felt when he declared this war within the Hives of Phobos. How he was not close enough to hear the fading beat of his father's heart, or Eo's. But how, in that moment, he could feel the hearts of his people beating across the darkness. How in the heartbeat of our son he could hear them all again.

Since the first ape pulled himself out of the mire to fashion an axe from stone, the meek have served the strong. We learned to content ourselves with crumbs. We allowed ourselves to be placated by religion. A promise of something after all this horror. We allowed ourselves to be enfeebled by poverty. We learned to be scolded whenever we raised our voice. Lasting change must be slow and steady and civil, we were told. That civility neutered us. But tell me, Virginia, was Gold civil when they conquered Earth? Did they assemble in peaceful protests? Or did they come with terror?

Lilath took me to a slaughterhouse on Earth when I was young. And I saw how they would kill the cows and then make them into food for us to eat. Tell me: why are cows different from people? Cows have dreams. Cows have affection for their friends and family. If you are going to say it is because cows are less intelligent than people, it is acceptable to slaughter them, why is not acceptable for me to slaughter people who are proportionately less intelligent to me than cows are to them? And if you say it is because people feel more, then I invite you to stab a cow and a human in the throat and see how very similar they are.

What I have seen was no trick. Fire and ash will come. And end of worlds. Serpent will strangle wolf. Lion will battle lion. Darkness will battle light. Sister murder brother. Son murder father. Father murder daughter. This is what the fire told me. All I have seen has come true. As others are consumed, Sefi will rise from the ashes to bind the Obsidians, to become one with Red, to found a kingdom watched over by a gray fox. Watched over by you.

I wish I knew that the eyes of his spirit looked upon his Vale. That his ancestors were waiting for him in their cool highland valley. But I know it is not so, because I know the Vale was created and cultivated by the Board of Quality Control in order to provide an important sociological prerequisite for obedience: a carrot at the end of a hard life. That very same belief that made them able to endure untold hardship in the mines has become a militant faith.

TO SEE THEM FROM ABOVE: the roving herds of beasts, the rivers carving stone, the rituals of man in all their varied panoply, to see the clouds roil over the patchwork latifundia of Asian plains, to see the mines of our home, is to remember the patterns of the world, and the majesty and complication and impermeable obscurity of distant lands. It is to remember how few people you know. How many do not know you. How many will soon forget you. How many praise you today to offer contempt tomorrow. Permanence of fame, power, dominion of the individual, are illusions. All that will be measured, all that will last, is your mastery of yourself.

Closing the distance between them, he had savored the modest allure of her walk and felt his body respond to the graceful sway of her hips as they approached the pool. He had envisioned her taking off her robe and showing him her slender nakedness, but instead, she had just stood there, as though searching for someone. It skipped through his mind that when he caught up to the girl, he would either apprehend or ravish her. He still wasn't sure which it would be as he stood before her, blocking her escape with a dark, slight smile. As she peered up at him fearfully from the shadowed folds of her hood, he found himself staring into the bluest eyes he had ever seen. He had only encountered that deep, dream-spun shade of cobalt once in his life before, in the stained glass windows of Chartres Cathedral. His awareness of the crowd them dimmed in the ocean-blue depths of her eyes. 'Who are you?' He did not say a word nor ask her permission. With the smooth self-assurance of a man who has access to every woman in the room, he captured her chin in a firm but gentle grip. She jumped when he touched her, panic flashing in her eyes. His hard stare softened slightly in amusement at that, but then his faint smile faded, for her skin was silken beneath his fingertips. With one hand, he lifted her face toward the dim torchlight, while the other softly brushed back her hood. Then Lucien faltered, faced with a beauty the likes of which he had never seen. His very soul grew hushed with reverence as he gazed at her, holding his breath for fear the vision would dissolve, a figment of his overactive brain. With her bright tresses gleaming the flame-gold of dawn and her large, frightened eyes of that shining, ethereal blue, he was so sure for a moment that she was a lost angel that he half expected to see silvery, feathered wings folded demurely beneath her coarse brown robe. She appeared somewhere between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two- a wholesome, nay, a virginal beauty of trembling purity. He instantly 'knew' that she was utterly untouched, impossible as that seemed in this place. Her face was proud and weary. Her satiny skin glowed in the candlelight, pale and fine, but her soft, luscious lips shot off an effervescent champagne-pop of desire that fizzed more sweetly in his veins than anything he'd felt since his adolescence, which had taken place, if he recalled correctly, some time during the Dark Ages. There was intelligence and valor in her delicate face, courage, and a quivering vulnerability that made him ache with anguish for the doom of all innocent things. 'A noble youth, a questing youth,' he thought, and if she had come to slay dragons, she had already pierced him in his black, fiery heart with the lance of her heaven-blue gaze.