The Hammer of Darkness Quotes

“Life and death are one. You have life, and life is death. Without death there is no meaning to life. Without life there is no death. Be content with what you have.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“Sunlight…and shadow. What more is life…than sunlight and shadow?”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“Then, as he chevies the ancient ones on their way, he opens a tunnel, a tunnel in time, back to when a certain FO star was younger, and without a planet.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“Götterdämmerung,” he whispers, and it is a promise. Not only to himself, but to his followers, for he can no longer escape them. Declared or not, gods of human societies are created in part by their worshipers, which is what Apollo has known and feared for a millennium.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“GERMIC: Ah, what’s the bigger mystery?   That man ever was,   Or that he’ll always be? JORIS: Some say one night a thousand ships   Fell across a thousand skies,   Like hope, which always flies. GERMIC: Dear lady, from whence we came,   Either from the thousand ships and skies,   Or from a single orb of fame,   Matters not when each man dies. —Excerpt from Act II, Home Divided Yves N. Dorben”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“Martel admires efficiency, and the kill instinct of the bluesuits is efficient. Less than units in the Park of the Regent and six proctors have attempted to destroy him for being so inconsiderate as to ignore the ritual silence and stillness devoted to the Prince. The last two are squandering energy on yet another attempt.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“Did the Council make any decision?” Martel asks. “Of course! They made a decision to study the request. That’s what happens most of the time.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“Martel also knows Kryn will not accept him, readies himself, drawing his cloak of darkness from the closet of time around the corner from now, preparing to use it at the proper instant.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“May the wind rise in dusty rooms, rooms for sex and sensuality, and let us not call either a sin, for sinning is a term implying an absolute morality, and the gods of the Empire, the gods of Aurore, accept no morality and know no absolutes.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“she stands before him as a collection of clashing traits—the face of a girl with eyes that have seen Hell, the figure of a virgin with the body posture of experience, a complexion that demands dark hair with golden.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“The news itself kills truth, for the news media can never encompass all that happens and, by omission, present only a scattering of accurate facts sufficient to kill the truth. Rulers, among them Emperors and Viceroys, merely use the media’s reported facts to ensure that the truth remains dead and buried.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“Time! Time is mine, and so is the night. Day will end, must end. And at that time comes night. Enjoy your days in the sun you cannot see, for though centuries pass, though the sons of those centuries pass, I will wait, and remember. Remember till the day when night will fall, and so will you!” This time, this one time, Martel does not release his darkness to let it disperse. Instead, he lets it break, in waves, away from him, and in breaking that dark washes around Aurore so that all on Aurore behold a moment of night. That darkness flies across Sybernal, across Jsalm, across Pamyra, on across the White Cliffs, across a certain white villa, across beaches, and across vacant golden waters. That instant of night wings over the lands and waters like a night eagle whose shadowed pinions cover but briefly the ground beneath.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“What are you, Martel? What are you that makes you want what you cannot have and turn from what you are?”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“A name is only what others want you to believe.” He pauses, hoping that the pause will let the meaning sink in. “I am what I am, not what others would have you believe.” Martel smiles. “And a pleasant evening to you all.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“I mock no one. I merely state what is obvious. Those who consider truth mockery only mock themselves.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“Oh, hear our prayers, undeclared God of Night. God of Darkness, deliver us from Light.” “Hear our prayers.” “Oh, hear our songs, God of the Evening, God of Blackness.” In time, up wells the familiar refrain: …And the Hammer of Darkness will fall from the sky; The old gods must fly, and the summer will die… The black candle remains unlit on the black stone cube. “Deliver us from Light; deliver us from the flame of our oppression, from eternal day that lets us rest not, nor slumber. Hear us, and deliver us, thy servants, from the bondage of eternal brilliance…”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“That’s right. Evening, evening in youth. Evening in full light. Why not? Light is a lie, promising everything and signifying nothing.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“Balance, Martel. You do not understand the need for balance. Power must be balanced with the understanding of its impact on mere mortals. Belief is more powerful than power.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“Shadow, shadow, on the wall, Who casts the longest shade of all? Is it death; or yet desire? Is it night, tamed by fire? Who’s the man who lights the lamp And calls the storm that brings the damp? Which the god who blocks the sun And fills the rivers in their run? Call the hammer, call the lightning…”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“Always harder, isn’t it, when you start to care again?”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“Martel?” “Umm?” “Don’t waste any more time.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“Now is all you have, Martel.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“I’m not asking for the future. I want the now.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“You could wear any color, but chose black, which is all colors or none.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“The empty quarter, the empty half, the empty outside of a full beaker…why are these the things he looks for?”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“The difference in the fate of each raindrop is not in the rain.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“Always easier to be brave when you’re dumb.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“People never react to what’s real. They react to what they want to believe. To what they believe they see or to what they want to see. What’s real doesn’t matter unless it coincides with their beliefs.”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness

“Most people, reflects Martel, wouldn’t see the difference unless they looked up. And who makes a habit of looking up?”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., The Hammer of Darkness