The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos, #1)

by Samantha Shannon

Art is not one great act of creation, but many small ones. When you read one of my poems, you fail to see the weeks of careful work it took me to build it—the thinking, the scratched-out words, the pages I burned in disgust. All you see, in the end, is what I want you to see. Such is politics.”

“In darkness, we are naked. Our truest selves. Night is when fear comes to us at its fullest, when we have no way to fight it,” Ead continued. “It will do everything it can to seep inside you. Sometimes it may succeed—but never think that you are the night.”

You have fished in the waters of history and arranged some fractured pieces into a picture that gives your grandsire’s death some meaning—but your determination to make it truth does not mean it is so.”

“The one who wears the chains is a thousand times greater than the one who wields them,”

“Piety can turn the power-hungry into monsters,” Ead said. “They can twist any teaching to justify their actions.”