A Time to Die Quotes

“Funny, because the way I see it, the more friends I have, the better I’m doing at life.” “Ah,” Victor said, “but friends can be bought. Enemies are always earned.”
― Tom Wood, A Time To Die

“No one was infallible, but mistakes had to be acknowledged and absorbed with a conscious self-examination if they were to become useful experience and not remain as failure.”
― Tom Wood, A Time To Die

“Her voice was even, but quiet. ‘You’re not going to let me go, are you?’ His was the same. ‘No, I’m not.’ She took a breath and stood to face him. Her amazing eyes seemed polished in the dim light. ‘Don’t keep me waiting.”
― Tom Wood, A Time to Die

“Rome fell not because of barbarians at the gates but weakness within. They conquered and they enslaved and as a result they ruled. They should have gone on ruling, but instead they began to govern and in doing so they sowed the seeds of their own annihilation. The whole world suffered as a result and human progress did worse than stand still; it regressed. It took Europe a thousand years to regain what had been forgotten. A whole millennium lost because Rome became . . . nice. Where might we be now had the Romans built upon the walls of their fathers instead of tearing them down? It’s a lesson for us all.”
― Tom Wood, A Time To Die

“Rome fell not because of barbarians at the gates but weakness within. They conquered and they enslaved and as a result they ruled. They should have gone on ruling, but instead they began to govern and in doing so they sowed the seeds of their own annihilation. The whole world suffered as a result and human progress did worse than stand still; it regressed. It took Europe a thousand years to regain what had been forgotten. A whole millennium lost because Rome became . . . nice. Where might we be now had the Romans built upon the walls of their fathers instead”
― Tom Wood, A Time To Die

“We think we’re good at reading each other,” Victor replied. “But more often than not we are in fact projecting our own feelings and mistaking self-awareness for perception.”
― Tom Wood, A Time To Die

“Prevention over cure, and it worked.”
― Tom Wood, A Time To Die

“With only”
― Tom Wood, A Time To Die

“I fought for a cause. And yes, I looted and I gained glory, but I went into that battle to protect my people. Have you ever done such a thing?’ ‘No,’ Victor said, with as even a voice as he could muster. ‘Then you do not know the clarity of righteous combat. You cannot comprehend the strength you gain from the unshakeable knowledge that you are pure and your enemy is sullied.’ ‘Napoleon said God is on the side with the best artillery.”
― Tom Wood, A Time to Die

“I like that quote, but Napoleon was a fool, drunk on his own perceived invincibility. He could have ruled the world had he but known humility.’ ‘Are you humble?’ The Serbian thought about this. ‘I have no desire to rule the world.”
― Tom Wood, A Time to Die

“It was a marvel of mechanical engineering even if it shouldn’t be. By some standards it was thrown together. Constructed with a lack of precision, its accuracy and effective range were poor by the standard of its contemporaries, but that same lack of precision meant its parts still worked caked in grease or mud or sand or sand or snow and even underwater. Some weapons went an entire war without being cleaned and still worked as they should by the end of it”
― Tom Wood, A Time to Die

“What are you?’ Rados asked. ‘You don’t strike me as the bone-breaker type.’ ‘I think of myself as a counsellor.’ ‘And what is it on which you offer counsel?’ ‘Whether a person remains alive or not.”
― Tom Wood, A Time to Die

“k are you writing?’ ‘It’s a fictionalised account of the death of Archduke Ferdinand.’ ‘A historical novel then. How interesting. You understand a lot about the assassination?’ ‘Well,’ Victor said. ‘They do say to write what you know.”
― Tom Wood, A Time to Die

“It seemed only polite to consider the plea from a target to alter the method of his own death, whilst accepting the death itself as inevitable. In all his years as a professional assassin, he had never been in such a situation. People had begged before, to no avail, but always to survive, never to die in a manner of their own choosing. Pulling off an accident that attracted no suspicion was no small feat – hence the overdose, either with cooperation or forced – but an accident with the victim’s assistance was a different matter”
― Tom Wood, A Time to Die

“It doesn’t matter what I know about you because I’m never going to become a threat to you. Because you’re here to kill me, aren’t you?’ ‘Yes,’ Victor said.”
― Tom Wood, A Time to Die

“To kill required little more than the ability to point and shoot. Almost anyone could do it. To escape required the successful diversion of blame. As a professional assassin, Victor’s motive for killing was either money or self-defence, the latter always related to the pursuit of the former. He killed who he was paid to, and who he had to. Because he had little-to-no connection with his victims he could sidestep almost all of the blame. That was focused at his clients – those who had the most to gain from application of Victor’s talents”
― Tom Wood, A Time to Die