Master Assassins (The Fire Sacraments, #1)

by Robert V.S. Redick

a man who pokes tigers with a stick will one day be mauled. You can take the stick away, but he’ll find another.

Sticks are everywhere. You have to walk about with closed fists or they will jump into your hands.

Only the dead are free from pain. Those who hide from pain end up hiding from life, cowering behind the strong, until even their own kin have no use for them. They wither, like grass under a rock. They betray their own souls.”