Empire of the Vampire (Empire of the Vampire, #1)

by Jay Kristoff

My mama knew herself, and there’s a fearsome power in that. Knowing exactly who you are and exactly what you’re capable of. Most folk would call it arrogance, I suppose. But most folk are fucking fools.”

“Everyone has an empty place inside,” Gabriel sighed. “You can try to fill it with whatever you like. Wine. Women. Work. In the end, a hole is still a hole.”

“See, I never understood that. Why pride is looked on as an evil. You work hard at something you’re not born good at? Damn right you should be fucking proud. There’s nothing comes of quitting besides the knowledge you didn’t finish.”

There are three ways men view the women of the world, Gabriel. Enemies to be overcome. Prizes to be won. Or as people. My advice is choose the latter, my love. Lest they begin considering you the former.

“Music is a truth beyond telling. A bridge between strangest souls. Two men who speak not a word of each other’s tongues may yet feel their hearts soar likewise at the same refrain. Gift a man the most important of lessons, he may forget it amorrow. Gift him a beautiful song, and he shall hum it ’til the day the crows make a castle of his bones.” “Very pretty, vampire. But truth is a sharper knife. Truth is, most men write songs so they can hear themselves sing. And the rest sing not for the song, but for the applause at the end. You know what most men don’t do enough of?” “Tell me, Silversaint.” “They don’t shut the fuck up. They don’t just sit and listen. It’s in silence we know ourselves, vampire. It’s in stillness we hear the questions that truly matter, scratching like baby birds on the eggshells of our eyes. Who am I? What do I want? What have I become? Truth is, the questions you hear in the quiet are always the most terrifying, because most people never take the time to listen to the answers. They dance. And they sing. And they fight. And they fuck. And they drown, filling their gullets with piss and their lungs with smoke and their heads with shit so they never have to learn the truth of who the fuck they are. Put a man in a room for a hundred years with a thousand books, and he’ll know a million truths. Put him in a room for a year with silence, and he’ll know himself.”

“When there’s little you can do, do what little you can.