A Plague of Giants (The Seven Kennings, #1)

by Kevin Hearne

If you drape the word duty over murder, well—you can hardly tell it’s murder anymore. Add the words in wartime, and the word murder simply disappears.

The future always waits until the present to reveal its plans. But the past can clarify our goals for us sometimes, help us say goodbye to those we haven’t let go, even realize that we need to change.

so many people thought it appropriate to prune the branching of others and could not bear to watch others grow as their natures suggested.

When your only view is one of such peace and beauty, you can believe the happy lie that the rest of the world is just so. Well, my duty—our duty, I suppose—is to make sure people look through plenty of other windows.

I suppose all Seekers are after peace of some kind, and make the calculation that one way or another—in death or blessing—they’ll get it.

The mourning of a loved one never ends at the funeral. It comes back every so often like a stage performer eager for a curtain call and expects you to be loud about it. I gave it all the lung capacity I had.

It is strange to mourn someone you know is at peace, to cry when they are clearly better off than you are. But I did it anyway.

But peace is something you enjoy in its season, knowing that someday it will shrivel and die. And now war is here. It will pass, too. History is full of one season or another; you know this.

But do not passively wait to thrive, For this very moment you may strive To whatever your will aspires.

But there are spirits collected in this area. Nothing that you would be able to see and nothing that will harm us. But violence leaves its echoes.”

It’s an airborne poison, hatred is, for I felt it filling my lungs and contaminating my thoughts. It is how violence thrives and peace withers.

That which tends to cause us mental distress is either memories of the past or worries about the future. In such times we are not living in the present; we are missing the peace and fulfillment in every moment because our mind is absent in some other time that lies behind us or ahead. To amend this—to ease the distress we feel—we must train ourselves to be mindful of the now.”

Power without control is useless.

War always takes your life. Sometimes it’s just not all at once.”

Strange how we unconsciously steer ourselves into new spectacular mistakes while trying to avoid repeating our past failures.

The nature of water is to take the easiest path. Forcing it to take a path of your choosing takes a bit more effort.

there is a measure of heroism in providing safe harbor. Not actively saving anyone so much as providing the space for them to save themselves. It takes a lot of effort and patience and kindness and a resignation that while you may be thanked, you will never be celebrated for it.