Burn of the Everflame Quotes

“If a man stays silent in the face of evil, is he truly good?”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“Tell me to stay.” A request. A demand. A desperate disciple’s prayer. “Nothing has to happen,” I said. “Just let me stay here and hold you until you fall asleep.” The war played out on the battlefield of her face: the cavalry of her stubborn resolve clashing with lonely arrows, all while bleeding from the explosive artillery of desire. There was not a second where I could tell which side was winning, only that casualties were mounting all around. Her eyes fell guiltily away, her mouth closed tight. The darker, possessive side of me gripped tighter to its sword, unwilling to accept defeat. It would be so easy, such a gods-damned relief, to hammer through her walls uninvited and force her to relent. I would win, if I did. Perhaps not on a day when she was her fiery, strong-willed self, but the woman before me was down to the last weary soldier of her will to fight. But I had sworn to go to war for her. Not against her.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“Our minds need joy for the same reason our bodies need helmets and armor.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“Power was a poisonous gas, corroding you from the inside the more you breathed it in. The line between using it to help and to hurt was dangerously thin and rarely all that clear.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“I know who we are as a people. I know the good, and the bad, that we are capable of doing. And what it has taught me . . .” I leaned forward, my tone bitter. “ . . . is that we have lost our humanity. We are kind—but only to those who do as we say. We are generous—but only to those who have something we value. We care for others only when it requires nothing from us. We are selfish.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“If a man stays silent in the face of evil”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“When everyone else looked at me, they saw something to fix. Diem saw someone to love.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“For everyone who looks around and sees only darkness, let them watch you burn and light the way”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“Do not challenge me on what I would do for your daughter,' I warned. 'I'd drive a blade into my own heart if I thought it would help her.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“Remember when our lives used to be boring?” “You were never boring. I was boring.” His attention lifted to my Crown. “You were always meant to do something big.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“Then,” he went on, “I thought I might use my magic to burn a scar around my finger instead. By evening it would heal, and each morning I would burn it anew, so that you would know our marriage was not a choice made once, but a vow that I swore to you again and again. A promise made, and kept, every day for the rest of our lives.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“No, Diem. If you jump, I’ll fly. I’ll never let you fall.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“fall.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“Love them for who they are”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“The hurt we cause in life has to matter more than any reward we may or may not receive in death.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“Home was people. The people who chose me”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“My existence in a nutshell: forever too much yet never enough.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“I told him only to serve the grey-eyed Queen. Nothing of his heart. Believe me, Diem, that choice was his alone. I saw the futures that did not come to pass. There were many in which he denied me, even some where he renounced his faith. But there was not a single one in which he did not love you.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“For the length of a single breath, my consciousness snapped free of my body. My senses bloomed like ink through water, hearing and smelling and tasting all that my shadows touched. I was no longer bound by bones and flesh. I was night immortal. I was the darkness itself.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“Is this how other people live”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“Go back to camp,” Auralie told her son. “You’ll be safe there. They’re not targeting mortals.” She reached for him, and he jerked back. “I’m not running to safety while everyone else is in danger.” “Teller, this is no time to argue.” Her voice was firm but hoarse from the still-fresh loss. “Go back to camp.” “Father didn’t teach me to turn my back on people who need help. Neither did my sister.” His tone turned sharper. “Until today, neither did you.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“Until Blessed Mother Lumnos reveals a new Crown, I serve Diem’s orders.” Her piercings glittered as she pointed her chin in challenge. “Do you?”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“I thought I might use my magic to burn a scar around my finger instead. By evening it would heal”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“Painful as the distance between us had been, we’d both had things we needed to work through.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“If you keep disappearing on us, Queenie, we’re gonna have to put a bell around your neck.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“Hello, Diem,” she said. “There’s no need to be afraid.” “Who . . . who are you?” I rasped. But I already knew the answer. Her patient smile said she knew it, too. “You know us as the Kindred. And we’ve been waiting a very long time to meet you.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“You’re going to kill a Crown?” “I’m going to free Diem. Whatever it takes.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“That’s the lie you wanted us to believe, but I read the books you banned. I know the history you tried to burn.”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“You are the moon”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame

“The sight of it made me ill. The poor fighting the poor”
― Penn Cole, Burn of the Everflame