The Blood Mirror Quotes

“Look at your mistakes long enough to learn from them, then put them behind you.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“To realize in an instant that you aren't going to have the life you'd hoped for, but not waste a moment complaining, instead acting instantly to save what good you can? That's more guts than I'd have had.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“Once a man is convinced to believe the impossible, it’s impossible to make him disbelieve it.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“With no small amount of swagger, Gavin Greyling said, "I remember Gavin fucking Guile, who won the False Prism's War, who outwitted the Thorn Conspirators and ended the Red Cliff Uprising. Gavin Guile, who brought low pirate kings and bandit lords, who ended the Blood Wars with wits and one deadly wave of his hand, who brought justice to the Seven Satrapies. Gavin Guile, who hunted wights and criminals, who built Brightwater Wall in less than a week, who aborted the birth of gods, destroyed at least two bane, and killed a god full fledged at Ruic Head. Gavin Guile, who faced a sea demon and lived, saving all the people of Garriston and the Blackguard, too. Gavin Guile, who sank Pash vecchio's great ship Gargantua with a rat. Gavin Guile, who armed us for war and gave the Blackguard the seas entire with ou sea chariots and hull wreckers. Gavin Guile, heart of our heart, our Promachos, the one who goes before us in war, who came and conquered and will come again.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“It’s easier to build a new culture on the graves of the dead than around the homes of the living.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“But mercy ceases to be a virtue when it enables further injustice.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“A man's face is the surface of a pond, reflecting the sky, reflecting the trees, reflecting whatever is the object of his gaze and his love, the reflection hiding his depths. But when the wave passes, in the swell, for an instant, you can see what lies beneath the waters.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“I’m going to explain this to you in terms you can understand: shut up.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“Every community is a gull gliding over a sea of spite, eager for carrion, all too ready to steal, and all too quick to squawk when stolen from.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“They knew you had to be stopped. You, Dazen, are the Black Prism.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“Guile! Brother! If we pull this off, we’ll be legends!”

Gavin sighed. “Gunner… we’re already legends.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“Nah … Sorta … I s’pose you could say … Yes. So you see, arter I lost the first time—my ante the gun-sword, his the ship yonder—he asked me if I wanted to go double or nothin’. I felt real down-like about losing your poky boom stick, plus I didn’t have anything left to lose ’cept this mighty fine jacket what I plundered from an Ilytian pirate king. Plust, whenever has Gunner’s luck been so bad he’s lost twice in a row?” He twisted his ratty beard. “So, uh, arter I lost again, he”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“I don’t remember that, either. I remember thinking he’d cheated. But maybe there is no cheating, there’s only success and a thousand flavors of failure.” “Thanks.” Old me is a dick. Guess that proves it is old me.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“Magic requires will, but words shape will, turn it, direct it, reflect it from one target to another.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“My name is Marissia Pullawr. The White was my grandmother. You were my assignment. I was never a slave.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“But Teia had a superpower that no one had counted on: she was completely paranoid. She had thought she was being followed a hundred times since she’d started working for the Order, so she’d figured out a thing or two. One, she was a paranoid mess. Two, she was pretty good at it.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“The most important part of seeking victory is defining it first,” Tisis said.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“A marriage breathes, and every exhalation is giving, and every inhalation is taking. It can’t live without both,”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“Oh, my husband, you beautiful soul. It’s not fair, but that doesn’t mean it’s not good. A marriage breathes, and every exhalation is giving, and every inhalation is taking. It can’t live without both, Kip. So … just … breathe.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“As if something in the human heart longs for chaos and finality, however violent.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“When life is outrageous, the only appropriate response is an inappropriate one.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“The seeds of love may sprout where they will, but we choose whether to water them and give them light or to pluck them like weeds from the soil.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“Why do men walk to the edge of a chasm? Is the view so different, right at the edge, than it is two steps back? They walk to the edge because it scares them.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“We've all heard the stories. It's just that some people don't want to believe them. 'He shall rise from the green' doesn't have to mean coming from the Blood Forest or Ruthgar. It could mean he starts out drafting green. One of the first glimmers of Breaker's magical genius showed whyen he went green golem in the Battle of Garriston - he'd never even heard of going green golem. He intuited it on the spot. His will was so strong, he drafted a green that stopped musket balls, Teia. 'He shall kill gods and kings'? He already done both. 'He'll be an outsider'? How much more outsider can you be than a mixed-blood bastard from Tyrea? Each of those things offend the luxiats, and all of them together make their blood boil - as it makes them furious that a Lightbringer would be necessary to put their worship right - but hasn't Orholam's work always offended those in power? I won't put myself on the wrong side of Orholam. 'In the darkest hour, when the abominations come the sores of Big Jasper, when Hope himself has died, then shall he bring the holy light and banish darkness.' 'Hope himself,' Teia. That's Gavin Guile. He's dead. our darkest hour is coming. We have to pick a side.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“And so, nearly in sight of the capital of Ruthgar, they boarded the odd new skimmer that Ben-hadad had dubbed the Mighty Thruster.
Kip had shaken his head. Tisis had muttered, "Boys." Ferkudi had guffawed. Winsen had grinned. Cruxer had blushed and said, "you can't call it that."
"We're the Mighty," Ben-hadad said. "The propulsion units are thrusters, that's all". The damn liar.
"i guess you'll be the first man to ride the Mighty Thruster?", tisis asked.
His brown wrinkled. "That makes it sound..."
"Make sure you take a good wide stance, legs apart, or he'll thrown you."
"He? i didn't..."
"Do you need more instruction? Because I'm getting quite adept at riding a mighty thruster myself," she said.
Ben-hadad blanched.
"You'll want to make sure you have a good grip, and loosen up your hips a--"
"All right! All right!"
Hours later, they sped into the mouth of the Great River -- on the good skimmer Blue Falcon”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“Drafting green from a thousand trees shining on each bank of the river in the noonday sun, he threw down steps and made a little platform to stand on. "We", he declared, "are damaged but not dismayed, oppressed but no overwhelmed. We are the Broken, for when our oaths were tested, we broke them ourselves. We were despised: Here are my best friends. This world sees a bastard, an orphan, a hostage, a cripple, an idiot. I call them the Mighty. We - you - are outcasts all, the homeless driven from the lands where our mothers were buried. They have taken the light from our lives. Killed our loved ones, our friends. Taken our homes. Left us to wander as ghosts and feral dogs." [...]

[...]"They have taken the light from us. Yes. But now they expect us to cower like dogs beaten and fade like shades forgotten. But I don't see dogs and shades here. Do they not know what they've begun? I see wolves. I see ghosts..."

He looked around them as if they had forgotten who they were, and he was here to hold up a mirror for them that they might remember.

"Have you forgotten? Have they made you, for this brief houyr, forget? Ghosts and Wolves hunt at night. They thin we cower, waiting for the light? Alone we are broken, bereaved, afraid. together we will hunt. In the darkness, we will usher them into the final darkness. Alone we were weak and frightened. That time is past. Together, today, we are the Nightbringers.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“Language isn’t weird. People are weird. Language makes sense until people get their phoneme pukers on it.” Teia”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“Andross, you motherfucker.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“This wasn’t shit creek. This wasn’t no paddle. This was shit ocean. This was I can’t even see land.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror

“For beauty isn't passive; beauty acts upon its beholder, moving and changing him. Line up ten paintings of different women by the same artist and ten men might agree which subject is the most beautiful. But let those men and women mingle for an evening, and duels might be fought over the same question, with no one lying in either case, and each convinced of the rightness of his judgement.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blood Mirror