Red Rising (Red Rising Saga, #1)

by Pierce Brown

I was forged in the bowels of this hard world. Sharpened by hate. Strengthened by love.

Without me, she would not eat. Without her, I would not live.

I’m their pride, their golden son.

In her eyes, I see my heart. In her breath, I hear my soul. She is my land. She is my kin. My love.

All ears yearn for a voice to lead them through darkness.”

“Death isn’t empty like you say it is. Emptiness is life without freedom, Darrow. Emptiness is living chained by fear, fear of loss, of death.

“It’s not just some dream, Darrow. I live for the dream that my children will be born free. That they will be what they like. That they will own the land their father gave them.” “I live for you,” I say sadly. She kisses my cheek. “Then you must live for more.”

“If you are thrown into the deep and do not swim, you will drown,” he says, and raises his thin eyebrows. “So keep swimming, right?”

He disagrees with the rules, but he follows them. It is possible. I can do the same until I have power enough to change them.

I am the Reaper and death is my shadow.

You can treat your friends like servants and they’ll love you, but you tell them they’re servants and they’ll kill you.

She is something new, something hopeful. Like spring to my deep winter.

Man cannot be freed by the same injustice that enslaved it.

“The measure of a man is what he does when he has power,”

“You do not follow me because I am the strongest. Pax is. You do not follow me because I am the brightest. Mustang is. You follow me because you do not know where you are going. I do.”

I am the spark that will set the worlds afire. I am the hammer that cracks the chains.

Words are a weapon stronger than he knows. And songs are even greater. The words wake the mind. The melody wakes the heart.