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

by Jay Kristoff

A letter unanswered is like a kiss ignored.

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.

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.”

“Trust me, vampire. Nothing lasts forever.”

“Bad men never realize when the monster is them.

What a world this would be,’ I smiled, ‘were it not held wholly and solely in the grip of stubborn old men.’

‘It’s the lowest kind of man who raises a fist to his child and calls it love. And it’s the worst kind of tyrant who demands you adore him above all others.’

“‘A life without books is a life not lived.’

Give someone the power to do anything they want, and they’ll do exactly that. That’s the horrifying part—the only thing holding some folk back from the worst atrocities they can imagine is the fear they might not get away with it.

‘Mark my words, youngblood. You don’t want to be a hero. Heroes die unpleasant deaths, far from home and hearth.’

We weren’t friends. But there’s a strange and fierce love forged in the fires of combat. A brotherhood written only in blood. Even among men who’d normally loathe each other.

Your past is stone, but your future is clay. And you decide the shape of the life you’ll make.’

‘One day as a lion is worth ten thousand as a lamb.’

‘Apologies. I’m being a bitch again. Although Mama did tell me: In life, always do what you love.’

some folk enjoy the notion of owning books more than reading them,

In battle, the wise man prays to God. Yet he still raises his sword.’

One or two moments of heroism—that’s what the wise seek. One or two heartbeats that last a lifetime.

God stood with us, Baptiste and me, as we faced down a dark that seeks to consume all men. All men. And if your God would name my love a sin, then he’s no God I know.’

“‘Hearts only bruise. They never break.’

Life is not a story you can tell, de León. It’s only a story you can live.

I know every time you give a piece of yourself to someone, you risk them breaking it.

The pages were filled with his story now, word by word, line by line. Gabriel thought it strange, and in truth, a kind of wonderful; that all he was and would ever be could be distilled into a few elegant lines on a page. The summation of his youth and his glory, his love and his loss, his life and his tears, captured like an errant moth and bound as if by magik into so small and plain a thing. The simple wonder of books.