Malice > Malice's Quotes

“To be brave among friends was nothing. To have the world against you and pick your path regardless–there is courage.”
― Joe Abercrombie, Red Country

“If a few students come reluctantly to their studies, then let them go. If all students come reluctantly to their studies, then let your scribe be dismissed and find another. For once students have been taught that learning is tedious, difficult, and useless, they will never learn another lesson.”
― Robin Hobb, Fool's Assassin

“Sit with a merchant or sit with a beggar, and it’ll always be the beggar who buys your first drink.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Darkness That Comes Before

“Dreams drawn from the sheath.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Darkness That Comes Before

“Answers are like opium: the more you imbibe, the more you need. Which is why the sober man finds solace in mystery.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Darkness That Comes Before

“Some events mark us so deeply that they find more force of presence in their aftermath than in their occurrence.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Darkness That Comes Before

“The darkness was crisp, as though scraped of sight and smell by winter’s razor.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Darkness That Comes Before

“No decision is so fine as to not bind us to its consequences. No consequence is so unexpected as to absolve us of our decisions. Not even death.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Warrior Prophet

“And ‘barbarity,’ I fear, is simply a word for unfamiliarity that threatens.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Warrior Prophet

“The world’s full of wonder,” he said. “Or at least horror that looks wondrous from afar.”
― Luke Scull, The Grim Company

“The human capacity for grief. It just isn’t capable of providing an adequate emotional response once the dead exceed a few dozen in number. And it doesn’t just level off—it just gives up, resets itself to zero.”
― Alastair Reynolds, Revelation Space

“Expect the worst and you can’t be disappointed. Optimism is the luxury of the young, the foolish and the dullard.”
― Luke Scull, The Grim Company

“It was a view of the world that anticipated evil from people because people always delivered. And the worst part was that she couldn’t really argue.”
― Paolo Bacigalupi, The Water Knife

“Never had she met a more opinionated lot than those with enough money to buy the opinions of others.”
― Rob J. Hayes, The Heresy Within

“The more in control the mark thinks they are, the more easily they respond to real control.”
― Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora

“when men and women of arms have bled to secure a time of peace, the very people who most benefit from that peace are also the most likely to forget the bleeding.”
― Scott Lynch, Red Seas Under Red Skies

“anyone in command feigns ease when death is near. We do it for those around us, and we do it for ourselves. We do it because the sole alternative is to die cringing.”
― Scott Lynch, Red Seas Under Red Skies

“this is what a command is. Staring consequences in the eye and pretending not to flinch.”
― Scott Lynch, Red Seas Under Red Skies

“Convince a man to take a single step—after all, what earthly difference could one step make?—and he would walk the next mile to prove himself right.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“The air became dry and still, like the gap in a dead man’s mouth.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“And do Men despise ignorance?’ I asked. ‘No,’ he said, ‘they prize it above all things—all things!—but only so long as it remains invisible.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Judging Eye

“If you find yourself taken unawares by someone you thought you knew, recall that the character revealed is as much your own as otherwise.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The White Luck Warrior

“You can only believe so many lies before becoming one of them.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The White Luck Warrior

“Nothing makes fools of people quite like a luxurious life,” Achamian said, shaking his head and nodding. “Ajencis says they confuse decisions made atop pillows for those compelled by stones. When they hear of other people being deceived, they’re certain they would know better. When they hear of other people being oppressed, they’re certain they would do anything but beg and cringe when the club is raised …” “And so they judge,” Mimara said sourly.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The White Luck Warrior

“Where power was perceived, power was given.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Darkness that Comes Before

“There’s faith that knows itself as faith, Proyas, and there’s faith that confuses itself for knowledge. The first embraces uncertainty, acknowledges the mysteriousness of the God. It begets compassion and tolerance. Who can entirely condemn when they’re not entirely certain they’re in the right? But the second, Proyas, the second embraces certainty and only pays lip service to the God’s mystery. It begets intolerance, hatred, violence . . .”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Darkness that Comes Before

“all men are frauds. Some, the wise, fool only others. Others, the foolish, fool only themselves. And a rare few fool both others and themselves—they are the rulers of Men”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Warrior Prophet

“We,” she repeated, laughing as though both hurt and astounded. “It really is ‘we’ now, isn’t it?” With a shy, even scared, smile, she helped him pull free his weathered robes. “When I can’t find you,” he said, “or even when you turn away, I feel … I feel hollow, as though my heart’s a thing of smoke … Isn’t that ‘we’?”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Warrior Prophet

“A cut scarred where a caress faded away.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Thousandfold Thought

“Love is like sleep. One can never seize, never force love.”
― R. Scott Bakker, The Thousandfold Thought