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You hope that, in time, you will become the world’s greatest authority on the journals held in this library. It would give you power over the scythedom’s entire history. That power would be your silent victory, because you would know that the scythedom needs you more than you need it.”
“You are far too valuable to the scythedom for us to risk losing you!”
“Nothing pleases me more than to see the scythedom prodded out of complacency. You give me hope for the future.”
There is a fine line between freedom and permission.
While freedom gives rise to growth and enlightenment, permission allows evil to flourish in a light of day that would otherwise destroy it.
Permission is the bloated corpse of freedom.
In time, all storms settle to a pleasant breeze.
what if this is who I truly am?
The idea of incarceration was so foreign and absurd to Greyson that when the cell door was slammed shut with a nasty clank that reverberated in the concrete cell block, he actually laughed. This type of treatment could never have been real. Surely, this was just an exaggeration.
She was the untamed world—and
Each of them is worth ten of the ones you mop up with your ‘janitorial’ services.”
abiding feeling that there is something more—something greater.
You can’t see any of the shades in between.”
The kid lived in a constant state of fight or flight.
how can I protect humanity from itself?
profound folly and breathtaking wisdom among humankind. They balance each other like dancers in the throes of a passionate tango.
the two most important acts known to me,
They are the creation of life… and life’s taking.
there are unthinkable moments where I can find no words, in any language, living or dead. And in those moments, if I had a mouth, I might open it to scream.
though everything in my backbrain is available to all scythes, that doesn’t mean I have to make anything easy for them to find. As for the more honorable scythes, I endure their incursions with far more acceptance and magnanimity. But I still don’t like it.
Like her classmates, Citra had been baffled by the concept. People bringing about the permanent end of others without having a license to do so? People destroying perfectly good buildings, bridges, and other landmarks for the sole purpose of denying others the privilege of their existence? How could any of that have ever really happened?
it’s what you do with the attention that matters.”
finding easy scapegoats for complicated problems had been a human pastime since the first mob of cavemen struck someone down with a rock.
The two factions were locked in a death grip now, but neither could die.
we are chosen because we are the brightest and the wisest. The best we can hope for is to be humble in our arrogance.”
grief is not an excuse for depravity.”
Perhaps some day she’d grow into it and find a way to properly make use of it.
the man seems to leave a trail of slime wherever he goes.”
Marie couldn’t help but smile. This girl whom she had not even wanted to take on in the first place had become her greatest supporter. Her truest friend.
Only time would tell whose side of the story would become history, and whose would be dismissed.
“The end doesn’t always justify the means, dear,” she said. “But sometimes it does. Wisdom is knowing the difference.”
The world is unfair and nature is cruel.
she never expected he would break so spectacularly. Goddard had no one but himself to blame, putting his trust in a boy who Scythe Faraday chose for his compassion.
She detached one of the lower emeralds near the hem of her robe and handed it to the guard to give the revival center as payment for their work on Rowan.
That gave her a dark shiver: It was what Tyger always said.
leaving her to lament the full scope of missed opportunity.
I have calculated that there is a chance you will have as profound an effect on the world as Citra Terranova. Either as Scythe Lucifer, or as your former self.
You can’t change the tide by spitting in the sea.
If there was nothing more to hope for, then he would cling to the hope that he might see her again before his eyes were closed forever.
The only thing that troubles me is that I never noticed it before.
I make a note that I must contribute substantial processing time to analyze my unusual lack of concern.
It seems so much about him is bitter now. It was never my intent to leave him thus.
I wonder if living a lie would improve my emotional configuration.
I do not have the ability to read minds.
his eyes are shut too tightly to know anything beyond his own anguish.
Supreme Blade Kahlo and Grandslayer Cromwell do not support the ideals of new-order scythes, but Grandslayers Hideyoshi and Amundsen do.…”
It was as if they were endlessly obsessed with the limited nature of their lives.
“Good God, Ayn, close your robe.”
“Even if I did desire that sort of relationship with you, we could never have one. It is clearly forbidden for scythes to have relations with one another. We satisfy our passions out there in the world with no emotional connections. There is a reason for that!”
