Vow Of Thieves Quotes

Waiting for someone else to write your history was no way to live. Sometimes it was only a certain way to die.

You have not stolen my heart, but I give it freely

Maybe some lies, maybe most of them, were lies we only told ourselves.

Who will write our story, Jase? We will, Kazi. You and I will write our own story. And side by side, every day, that is what we do.

It doesn't always take an army to save the world. Sometimes it takes just one person who won't let evil win.

Every one of my tomorrows is yours

We wove our dreams together like armor.

But I had loved and been loved deeply and completely, not once but twice. I would not trade that for all the riches that Montegue had to offer.

You two seemed inevitable.

A thousand times over, Kazi,” I whispered. “I would marry you more than a thousand times.

Do not pass a rose without stopping to smell it. It is a gift that may not always be there.

Sometimes you need to own one whole day. Maybe that’s what makes you brave enough to face another.

Was this what families did? Bared their souls in front of an entire room of people? Their confessions left me raw. These were the kinds of conversations I didn’t know how to have.

Truly great leaders don’t have to chase love. It finds them.

I love you, Jase. No matter what happens ahead. I want those to be the last words you hear from me. I love you.

We are easily seduced. It’s magic lures us, and we are it’s willing victims.

I love you Jase Ballenger, and I will for all my days.

Say it again, Jase. But you already know the answer. But it’s an answer I will never grow tired of. And maybe I never tired of telling it to her.

Kazi of Brightmist...you are the love I didn't know I needed. You are the hand pulling me through the wilderness, The sun warming my face. You make me stronger, smarter, wiser. You are the compass that makes me a better man. With you by my side, no challenge will be too great. I vow to honor you, Kazi, and do all I can to be worthy of your love. I will never stumble in my devotion to you, and I vow to keep you safe always. My family is now your family, and your family, mine. You have not stolen my heart, but I give it freely, And in the presence of these witnesses, I take you to be my wife." He squeezed my hand. His brown eyes danced, just as they had the first time he spoke those vows to me. It was my turn now. I took a deep breath. Were any words enough? But I said the ones closest to my heart, the ones I had said in the wilderness and repeated almost daily when I lay in a dark cell, uncertain where he was but needing to believe I would see him again. "I love you, Jase Ballenger, and I will for all my days. You have brought me fullness where there was only hunger, You have given me a universe of stars and stories, Where there was emptiness. You've unlocked a part of me I was afraid to believe in, And made the magic of wish stalks come true. I vow to care for you, to protect you and everything that is yours. Your home is now my home, your family, my family. I will stand by you as a partner in all things. With you by my side, I will never lack for joy. I know life is full of twists and turns, and sometimes loss, but whatever paths we go down, I want every step to be with you. I want to grow old with you, Jase. Every one of my tomorrows is yours, And in the presence of these witnesses, I take you to be my husband.

I’m not sure how long it will take to convince my heart to stop racing every time I’m confronted with no place to hide. Maybe a lifetime. Are you up for that?” “That’s a lot of riddles.” “I still have a few in me.” I did too.

The queen once told me there were a hundred ways to fall in love. Maybe there were a hundred ways to find and give forgiveness too. I think I had already found a few of them.

I felt myself falling deeper into the world that was Jase Ballenger. “Never. Not a thousand tomorrow’s could I ever be sorry. Trouble with you makes me glad for it. I love you with every breath I will ever breathe. I love you Jase.” “More than an orange?” he asked between kisses. “Let’s not get carried away, Patrei.

Jase promised me a lifetime with him. He promised a mountain full of trees and a family that would grow to love me again. He promised we would write our own story. And I made promises too.

Gold pleases men, but blood serves the gods, because in the end, your life is all you have to give.

There is always a way out, Kazi. Blink last. Die tomorrow.

Every one of my tomorrows is yours.

What’s wrong with getting married again? I would marry you a hundred times over. She kissed me, berry juice still on her lips. Only a hundred? she asked. A thousand times.

Once upon a time, long long ago, before monsters roamed the earth, all the stars hung quietly in the sky, and great cities of wonder and light reached up to meet them.

I finally understood that history wasn’t just written on walls and in books but made in a thousand daily decisions, and some of them went wrong, some went right, and some decisions just had to be made because time was running out. Waiting for someone else to write your history was no way to live. Sometimes it was only a certain way to die.

A family’s not a puzzle with a set number of pieces. It’s more like a well—the fuller, the better.

Who will write our story Jase? We will Kazi. You and I will write our own story. And side by side, every day, that is what we do.

but true love goes far deeper than that. It is an unexplainable connection of the heart, one that endures triumph and tragedy, pain and suffering, obstacles and loss. It is something that is either present or missing - there is no "almost", "in between", "most of the time." It is the unexplainable reason that some marriages entered into after one-week courtships can last a lifetime. Its absence is why "perfect" marriages fall apart. It can't be quantified or explained in science, religion, or philosophy. It can't be advised on by friends or marriage counselors who can't take their own advice. There are no rules, no how-to books, no guaranteed methods of success. It is not defined by vows or rings or promises of tomorrow. It is simply a miracle of God, that too few are blessed to experience.

Maybe that’s what makes you brave enough to face another.

You going to kill the Patrei with a spoon?” I turned my head. It was Wren, her hands planted on her hips. “Not that I don’t think you could.

We. Everything was we now. We wove our dreams together like armor. Nothing could stop us now.

You are the love I didn't know I needed.

When you are on the lowest rung of society, you are a comforting reminder to those just a bit above you that life could always be worse, that they are not you.

Or what, Jase? What are you going to do? I am your brother!” My chest heaved. “And Kazi is my wife!

Where's Priya?" I asked. "She's coming. Unsaddling the horses. She lost the bet." "Bet?" I said. "Who would take down the first soldier." "You had time for bets?" my mother snapped.

I have two arms but not a bone, I can’t be hurt with knife or stone. I have a head but lack a face, I don’t need eyes to match your pace. I’m shifty, a thief, a trick of the eyes, My robes are made of mystery and lies. I am short, I am thin, I am monstrous and tall, But when midnight comes, I am nothing at all.

You can never trust a thief you have welcomed into your home.

Know your enemies as well as you know your allies. Know them better. Make their business yours.

We’d had no outside influences to come between us.

Wren’s hands slapped the table. “Imara’s knives!” “Yes!” Synové answered, and the two began excitedly chattering about their qualities, forgetting about the rest of us.

But I had loved and been loved deep;y and completely, not once but twice. I would not trade that for all the riches that Montegue had to offer.

Los líderes verdaderamente grandes no tienen que perseguir el amor. El amor los encuentra.

We. Everything was we now.

Right now my only plan is to kiss my wife. And I am fairly certain not even the gods can derail that.

You could have shot me with an arrow. You could have done a hundred things, but instead you dangled Zane in front of me, knowing what he had done. In an instant, you brought back the horror of a night to a small child. That’s what I became.

Ready to go?” he asked. I spun to face him, scrutinizing him from head to toe, and sighed. “Finally dressed, are you? Once I’ve settled in as magistrate, I’m going to have to rein you in, Patrei.” “So today it’s magistrate? Yesterday you were Ambassador Brightmist.” “The queen left the roles to my discretion, depending on how you behave.” “Plan to arrest me?” he asked, a bit too eagerly. I narrowed my eyes. “If you don’t toe the line.” “If you weren’t so impatient, you wouldn’t be saddled with me now.

Rahtan, Ten, Shadowmaker, no title you hold is going to make me change my mind on this one,' he had growled to me under his breath as we got our gear together. 'And only today does an ambassador trump a Patrei,' he added, and then kissed me, long and hard. 'We'll see about that, pretty boy,' I whispered back to him.

Hold on to each other because that is what will save you. Out of many you are one now. You are family. I look to our put-together family. Non want to be here any more than I do. We are all different. We argue. We wave our fists. But we hold each other too. We grow together, strong like the circle of trees in the valley.

He surveyed what remained of his crew. Rotty still hovered by the wreckage of the longboat. Jesper sat with elbows on knees, head in hands, Wylan beside him wearing the face of a near-stranger; Matthias stood gazing across the water in the direction of Hellgate like a stone sentinel. If Kaz was their leader, then Inej had been their lodestone, pulling them together when they seemed most likely to drift apart. Nina had disguised Kaz’s crow-and-cup tattoo before they’d entered the Ice Court, but he hadn’t let her near the R on his bicep. Now he touched his gloved fingers to where the sleeve of his coat covered that mark. Without meaning to, he’d let Kaz Rietveld return. He didn’t know if it had begun with Inej’s injury or that hideous ride in the prison wagon, but somehow he’d let it happen and it had cost him dearly. That didn’t mean he was going to let himself be bested by some thieving merch. Kaz looked south toward Ketterdam’s harbors. The beginnings of an idea scratched at the back of his skull, an itch, the barest inkling. It wasn’t a plan, but it might be the start of one. He could see the shape it would take—impossible, absurd, and requiring a serious chunk of cash. “Scheming face,” murmured Jesper. “Definitely,” agreed Wylan. Matthias folded his arms. “Digging in your bag of tricks, demjin?” Kaz flexed his fingers in his gloves. How did you survive the Barrel? When they took everything from you, you found a way to make something from nothing. “I’m going to invent a new trick,” Kaz said. “One Van Eck will never forget.” He turned to the others. If he could have gone after Inej alone, he would have, but not even he could pull that off. “I’ll need the right crew.” Wylan got to his feet. “For the Wraith.” Jesper followed, still not meeting Kaz’s eyes. “For Inej,” he said quietly. Matthias gave a single sharp nod. Inej had wanted Kaz to become someone else, a better person, a gentler thief. But that boy had no place here. That boy ended up starving in an alley. He ended up dead. That boy couldn’t get her back. I’m going to get my money, Kaz vowed. And I’m going to get my girl. Inej could never be his, not really, but he would find a way to give her the freedom he’d promised her so long ago. Dirtyhands had come to see the rough work done.

Never trust Rahtan bearing gifts,” I warned. “What you don’t know can get you into trouble, Patrei.” “But trouble is what we do best together.” He gathered me into his arms, his eyes dancing with light, but then his playful expression turned serious. “Are you sorry?” I felt myself falling deeper into the world that was Jase Ballenger. “Never. Not through a thousand tomorrows could I ever be sorry. Trouble with you makes me glad for it. I love you with every breath I will ever breathe. I love you, Jase.” “More than an orange?” he asked between kisses. “Let’s not get carried away, Patrei.

By midnight the governor had excused himself and members of the band had begun to slip away. A blind street harpist stood terrified upon the banquet table among the bones and platters and a horde of luridlooking whores had infiltrated the dance. Pistolfire soon became general and Mr Riddle, who was acting American consul in the city, descended to remonstrate with the revelers and was warned away. Fights broke out. Furniture was disassembled, men waving chairlegs, candlestands. Two whores grappled and pitched into a sideboard and went to the floor in a crash of brandyglasses. Jackson, pistols drawn, lurched into the street vowing to shoot the ass off Jesus Christ, the longlegged white son of a bitch. At dawn the shapes of insensate topers lay snoring about the floor among dark patches of drying blood. Bathcat and the harpist lay asleep upon the banquet table in one another’s arms. A family of thieves were tiptoeing through the wreckage turning out the pockets of the sleepers and the remains of a bonfire that had consumed a good part of the hotel’s furnishings smoldered in the street before the door. These

But it went wrong,” he said. “Three hundred years ago, it all went wrong. Some people reckon the philosophers’ Guild of the Torre degli Angeli, the Tower of the Angels, in the city we have just left, they’re the ones to blame. Others say it was a judgment on us for some great sin, though I never heard any agreement about what that sin was. But suddenly out of nowhere there came the Specters, and we’ve been haunted ever since. You’ve seen what they do. Now imagine what it is to live in a world with Specters in it. How can we prosper, when we can’t rely on anything continuing as it is? At any moment a father might be taken, or a mother, and the family fall apart; a merchant might be taken, and his enterprise fail, and all his clerks and factors lose their employment; and how can lovers trust their vows? All the trust and all the virtue fell out of our world when the Specters came.” “Who are these philosophers?” said Serafina. “And where is this tower you speak of?” “In the city we left—Cittàgazze. The city of magpies. You know why it’s called that? Because magpies steal, and that’s all we can do now. We create nothing, we have built nothing for hundreds of years, all we can do is steal from other worlds. Oh, yes, we know about other worlds. Those philosophers in the Torre degli Angeli discovered all we need to know about that subject. They have a spell which, if you say it, lets you walk through a door that isn’t there, and find yourself in another world. Some say it’s not a spell but a key that can open even where there isn’t a lock. Who knows? Whatever it is, it let the Specters in. And the philosophers use it still, I understand. They pass into other worlds and steal from them and bring back what they find. Gold and jewels, of course, but other things too, like ideas, or sacks of corn, or pencils. They are the source of all our wealth,” he said bitterly, “that Guild of thieves.” “Why don’t the Specters harm children?” asked Ruta Skadi. “That is the greatest mystery of all. In the innocence of children there’s some power that repels the Specters of Indifference. But it’s more than that. Children simply don’t see them, though we can’t understand why. We never have. But Specter-orphans are common, as you can imagine—children whose parents have been taken; they gather in bands and roam the country, and sometimes they hire themselves out to adults to look for food and supplies in a Specter-ridden area, and sometimes they simply drift about and scavenge. “So that is our world. Oh, we managed to live with this curse. They’re true parasites: they won’t kill their host, though they drain most of the life out of him.

Dad, I’m living with Dev and Daniel. I love them. They love me. You wanted me to get back together with Danny, and the good news is I have. We’re together, and we take those vows we never got around to making seriously. Well, all except for the forsaking all others part. We’re forsaking all others except Dev.

I REGARD,” Chopper Jim said judiciously, “all forms of organized religion as a blight, an abomination and a public nuisance. It is the fifth horseman of the Apocalypse. I’m not talking about the guy who takes a vow of silence, or poverty, or celibacy”—he shivered—“and goes and sits on top of a mountain to meditate for the rest of his life.” He fixed Kate with a stern look. “It’s the people who follow him up that mountain, and then come back down and beat His word into their fellow man who annoy me.” She didn’t reply, and he forked up a french fry. Mutt, well aware of who was the soft touch at this table, sat pressed against his side, looking yearningly up into his face. He forked up another french fry and she took it delicately between her teeth, casting him a look of adoration in the process. “Most of those people—not all, I admit—but most of the people who subscribe to organized religion are too lazy and or too frightened to answer the hard questions themselves, and so hand their souls over for safe-keeping to a bunch of thieves and charlatans who know more about separating fools from their money than they do about God. Any God.” He took a bite of cheeseburger. “Religion is a crutch. You lean on it long enough, you forget how to walk on your own two feet.

He set his wine goblet on the table, knelt by Bridget’s feet, and took her hands in his, pressing a kiss upon each small, soft palm before looking at her. “What ye saw happen to those thieves and what ye saw tonight is a part of me. I cannae deny it. I cannae deny that there have been MacNachtons who have behaved verra much like the creatures of some nightmare. There is a feral part of me, of us. It comes out in the hunt, in battle, in anger. It has been a verra long time, however, since MacNachtons were a threat to innocent Outsiders, although I fear Scymynd would like to be so again. They used to call us the Nightriders because we raced out of these hills at night and death always followed, though nay in the ways and numbers the tales would have ye believe. I think Scymynd wants those days to return.” “What of the sun, Cathal? Can that kill ye?” “Aye, eventually. Tis as if the sun feeds upon us, steals the life right out of us. It burns us up. A Pureblood can die rather quickly if caught out in the sun. I can endure it for a while, but it does leave me feeling weak and ill.” “And what of whatever children we may be blessed with?” “I cannae say. There isnae any way to ken what traits will weaken, which will linger, and which will disappear. My cousin Connall is of the same paternal and maternal bloodline as I am, but is different. James is born of a halfblood and an Outsider. He can endure quite a lot of daylight, but he still suffers a wee bit.” Bridget slipped her hands free of his grasp and took his face in her hands. “It matters not. I chose ye. I have said vows afore God. Tis good to ken that I deal with people, nay demons, but it still doesnae matter. Ye are my husband.” There

Why did people make such a fateful miscalculation? For the same reason that people throughout history have miscalculated. People were unable to fathom the full consequences of their decisions. Whenever they decided to do a bit of extra work – say, to hoe the fields instead of scattering seeds on the surface – people thought, ‘Yes, we will have to work harder. But the harvest will be so bountiful! We won’t have to worry any more about lean years. Our children will never go to sleep hungry.’ It made sense. If you worked harder, you would have a better life. That was the plan. The first part of the plan went smoothly. People indeed worked harder. But people did not foresee that the number of children would increase, meaning that the extra wheat would have to be shared between more children. Neither did the early farmers understand that feeding children with more porridge and less breast milk would weaken their immune system, and that permanent settlements would be hotbeds for infectious diseases. They did not foresee that by increasing their dependence on a single source of food, they were actually exposing themselves even more to the depredations of drought. Nor did the farmers foresee that in good years their bulging granaries would tempt thieves and enemies, compelling them to start building walls and doing guard duty. Then why didn’t humans abandon farming when the plan backfired? Partly because it took generations for the small changes to accumulate and transform society and, by then, nobody remembered that they had ever lived differently. And partly because population growth burned humanity’s boats. If the adoption of ploughing increased a village’s population from 100 to 110, which ten people would have volunteered to starve so that the others could go back to the good old times? There was no going back. The trap snapped shut. The pursuit of an easier life resulted in much hardship, and not for the last time. It happens to us today. How many young college graduates have taken demanding jobs in high-powered firms, vowing that they will work hard to earn money that will enable them to retire and pursue their real interests when they are thirty-five? But by the time they reach that age, they have large mortgages, children to school, houses in the suburbs that necessitate at least two cars per family, and a sense that life is not worth living without really good wine and expensive holidays abroad. What are they supposed to do, go back to digging up roots? No, they double their efforts and keep slaving away. One

His brother Najib owned an auto-parts store at bustling Shikarpur Gate, the mouth of the narrow road linking their village to the city—an ancient byway that had once led southward through the passes all the way to India. At dusk it is clogged with a riot of vegetable sellers’ handcarts beset by shoppers, Toyota pickup trucks, horse-drawn taxis, and three-wheeled rickshaws clambering around and through the throng like gaudy dung beetles. Nurallah’s brother Najib had gone to Chaman, just across the border in Pakistan, where the streets are lined with cargo containers serving as shops, and used motor oil cements the dust to the ground in a glossy tarmac, and every variety of automotive organ or sinew is laid bare, spread out, and strung up for sale. He had made his purchases and set off back to Kandahar. “He paid his customs dues”—Nurallah emphasized the remarkable point—“because that’s the law. He paid at every checkpoint on the way back, fifty afghanis, a hundred afghanis.” A dollar or two every time an unkempt, underage police boy in green fatigues slouched out of a sandbagged lean-to into the middle of the road—eight times in the sixty-six miles when last I counted. “And then when he reached the entrance to town, the police there wanted five hundred afghanis. Five hundred!” A double arch marks the place where the road that swoops down from Kabul joins the road leading in from Pakistan. The police range from one side to the other, like spear fishermen hunting trout in a narrows. “He refused,” Nurallah continued. “He said he had paid his customs dues—he showed them the receipt. He said he had paid the bribes at every checkpoint all along the way, and he was not paying again.” I waited a beat. “So what happened?” “They reached into his window and smacked him.” “They hit him?” I was shocked. Najib might be a sunny guy, but Kandahar tempers are strung on tripwires. For a second I thought we’d have to go bail him out. “What did he do?” Nurallah’s eyes, beneath his widow’s peak, were banked and smoldering. “What could he do? He paid the money. But then he pulled over to the side of the road and called me. I told him to stay right there. And I called Police Chief Matiullah Qatih, to report the officer who was taking the bribes.” And Matiullah had scoffed at him: Did he die of it? The police buzzards had seen Najib make the call. They had descended on him, snatched the phone out of his hand, and smashed it. “You call that law?” Now Nurallah was ablaze. “They’re the police! They should be showing people what the law is; they should be enforcing the law. And they’re the ones breaking it.” Nurallah was once a police officer himself. He left the force the day his own boss, Kabul police chief Zabit Akrem, was assassinated in that blast in the mosque in 2005.1 Yet so stout was Nurallah’s pride in his former profession that he brought his dark green uniform into work and kept it there, hung neatly on a hook in his locker. “My sacred oath,” he vowed, concluding: “If I see someone planting an IED on a road, and then I see a police truck coming, I will turn away. I will not warn them.” I caught my breath. So maybe he didn’t mean it literally. Maybe Nurallah wouldn’t actually connive with the Taliban. Still, if a former police officer like him was even mouthing such thoughts, then others were acting on them. Afghan government corruption was manufacturing Taliban.

Lest we repeat history, Let the stories be passed, From father to son, from mother to daughter, For with but one generation, History and truth are lost forever. —Song of Jezelia

Maybe I finally understood that history wasn't just written on walls and in books but made in a thousand daily decisions, and some of them went wrong, some went right, and some decisions just had to be made because time was running out. Waiting for someone else to write your history was no way to live. Sometimes it was only a certain way to die.

Sometimes it takes just one person who won’t let evil win.

She saw me as someone worth saving, in spite of my rags and past. She inspired me to be more than what others expected of me. I dared to believe I could make a difference because the queen had believed it first.

Lest we repeat history, let the stories be passed, from father to son, from mother to daughter, for with but one generation, history and truth are lost forever.

Sometimes you have to remind yourself that you are not powerless. That you have some measures of control. Maybe that’s what makes you brave enough to face another day.

A thousand times over, Kazi,’ I whispered. ‘I would marry you more than a thousand times.

Maybe sometimes life and fantasies and family did not all go completely wrong. But I had loved and been loved deeply and completely, not once but twice in my life. I would not trade that for all the riches that Montegue had to offer.

When opportunity knocks, you don’t go punching it in the face.

The queen once told me there were a hundred ways to fall in love. Maybe there were a hundred ways to find and give forgiveness too. I think I had already found a few.

My mind reasons that there’s nothing to be afraid of, but something inside me I can’t control reacts differently.

there were a hundred ways to fall in love. Maybe there were a hundred ways to find and give forgiveness too. I think I had already found a few of them.

We’re all going to die.

Synové’s brows pulled down defensively. “When opportunity knocks, you don’t go punching it in the face.

I have to face them sooner or later.

Anything good in his life he had fought and scratched for, and his joy came from a deep place of understanding the lack of it.

Hand Watches" I opened the drawer where I keep old things and tokens… I looked over some hand watches with dead batteries and frozen times… Watches gifted to me over the years by teachers or friends commending my accomplishments and respect for time… It never occurred to them nor to me then that Time would die in a heart attack and cease to matter the day my homeland was occupied and destroyed… The day plunderers, in collaboration with thieves at home, would burn and destroy everything beautiful… And ever since, I refuse to wear hand watches… I vowed not to wear a hand watch until my people retrieve their Time and dignity… And when that happens, Time will not matter for I will then turn into a butterfly a sparrow a daffodil an orange Or perhaps an apricot blossom on a branch… I will turn into a spring of water flowing beyond time and timing … In that same drawer I found pens that have run out of ink looking now like mummified corpses… At a moment of despair, A strong feeling struck me like a lightning leaving me with a frightening question: What if this is a wound no time can heal, a cause that no ink can revive? [Published on April 7, 2023 on CounterPunch.org]

But I had loved and been loved deeply and completely, not once but twice in my life. I would not trade that for all the riches that Montegue had to offer.

Love is not something you can force, It will happen or it won’t.

You going to kill the Patrei with a spoon?

The spoon tumbled from my hand, and I fell down onto his chest, holding him, my face pressed into his neck. His arms circled around me, holding me as tight as I held him.

They thought themselves only a step lower than the Gods, proud in their power over heaven and earth. They grew strong in their knowledge but weak in their wisdom.

Enough! This is singua solus now,” said Locke. “It means ‘one fate.’ Does everyone understand?” Moncraine only glared. Chantal, Bert, and Sylvanus nodded. Donkey shook his head, and Alondo spoke. “I, uh, have to confess I don’t.” “It works like this,” said Locke. “Everyone here is now party to murder and treason. Congratulations! There’s no backing gently out of it. So we go straight through this business with our heads held high, or we hang. We swear ourselves to the plan, we tell the exact same lies, and we take the truth to the grave.” “And if anyone reneges,” said Sylvanas, slowly and grimly, “should anyone think to confess after all, and trade the rest of us for some advantage, we swear to vengeance. The rest of us vow to get them, whatever it takes.” “Mercy of the Twelve,” sobbed Donker, “I just wanted to have some fun onstage, just once.

She's Rahtan. They can't be trusted." "I wish you rest, Mama.

Write it down, before you forget. And each day we do. But we can only write about Now. Before is already gone, except for the nightmares.

You came to us outlaws,' he began, 'poachers, rapers, debtors, killers, and thieves. You came to us children. You came to us alone, in chains, with neither friends nor honor. You came to us rich, and you came to us poor. Some of you bear the names of proud houses. Others have only bastards’ names, or no names at all. It makes no matter. All that is past now. On the Wall, we are all one house. 'At evenfall, as the sun sets and we face the gathering night, you shall take your vows. From that moment, you will be a Sworn Brother of the Night’s Watch. Your crimes will be washed away, your debts forgiven. So too you must wash away your former loyalties, put aside your grudges, forget old wrongs and old loves alike. Here you begin anew. 'A man of the Night’s Watch lives his life for the realm. Not for a king, nor a lord, nor the honor of this house or that house, neither for gold nor glory nor a woman’s love, but for the realm, and all the people in it. A man of the Night’s Watch takes no wife and fathers no sons. Our wife is duty. Our mistress is honor. And you are the only sons we shall ever know.

I don’t plan on getting killed.” “No one ever does.