Empire of the Vampire (Empire of the Vampire, #1)

by Jay Kristoff

“We are hope for the hopeless. The fire in the night.

She had the eyes of a dark angel.’ Gabriel smiled. ‘And the mouth of a she-devil on the rag.

“I’d tear the wings off an angel to fly this cage. I’d claw down the sky to carve my name into this earth.”

“One day as a lion is worth ten thousand as a lamb.”

angel’s eyes, a devil’s smile.

‘A life without books is a life not lived.

“Let me tell you, if the Almighty offered me the platter of shit that constitutes divine motherhood and yet denied me the pleasure of a good roll in the hay beforehand, I’d have told him to go fuck himself.”

‘Music is a truth beyond telling. A bridge between strangest souls. Two men who speak not a word of each other’s tongues may yet feel their hearts soar likewise at the same refrain. Gift a man the most important of lessons, he may forget it amorrow. Gift him a beautiful song, and he shall hum it ’til the day the crows make a castle of his bones.’

‘The only thing worse than a fool is a fool who thinks himself wise.’

Through blood and fire, now dance with me.”

‘Through blood and fire, now dance with me.

Life is not a story you can tell, de León. It’s only a story you can live. The bright news is, you get to choose what kind yours will be. A story of horror, or a story of courage. A story of indulgence, or a story of duty. The story of a monster. Or the story of a man.”

Her eyes were darker than all the roads I’d walked and all the monstrous things I’d seen, and in them I knew I’d find a heaven if only I were willing to risk a hell.

I know this world is cruel. That saints and sinners suffer one and the same.

You only appreciate the sunshine after you’ve stood in the pouring rain. Everything happens for a reason,

We believe in life after death, because oblivion is too dark an abyss to stare into.

‘Two little words.