Empire of the Damned Quotes

“We only die if we are forgotten. Burn bright. Burn brief. But burn.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“life without books is a life not lived, Dior. There’s a magik like no other to be found in them. To open a book is to open a door – to another place, another time, another mind. And usually, mademoiselle, it’s a mind far sharper than your own.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“The road is black ahead,’ I told her. ‘And it’s hard to keep walking when you can’t see the ground beneath your feet. But that’s what courage is. The will to keep walking in the darkness.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“I said it to the Flower, I'll say it again: There's a solace to be found in sadness. And I understand why ye’d think ye deserve that dark. Easier to find refuge in drink, in rage, to say hell with it all and push everyone away. Because ye think that cold is easier to live with than the pain that could come if ye let the warmth back in, only to be burned again.
But that's the fire that lets us know we're alive, Gabriel."
‘I shook my head, two pale shadows now rising at my back.
“‘You can't fix a broken blade, Phoebe."
“‘But don't ye see? We don't get broken. We’re made broken. We are not whole alone. But if we're blessed, if we're brave, we might find those few whose edges fit against our own. Like pieces of the same puzzle, or shards of the same shattered blade. Those people who, in their own broken way, make our broken edge complete.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“That's the way to wisdom, vampire. The wise man learns more from his enemies than the fool from his friends, but even the fool can learn if his friends are willing to call him one.

Surround yourself with folk who confront you. If you're not being challenged, you're not learning anything. If you're the smartest man in the room, you're in the wrong fucking room.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“The right book is worth a hundred blades”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“To hate the thing that is completing you. To love the thing that is destroying you. What perfect suffering. What hell divine.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“This world won’t give you what you want just because you asked nicely, girl. Not respect. Not love. Not peace. You get what you earn. You eat what you kill.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“No fear. Only fury.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“A life without books is a life not lived, Dior. There’s a magik like no other to be found in them. To open a book is to open a door—to another place, another time, another mind. And usually, mademoiselle, it’s a mind far sharper than your own.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“Measure yourself not by where others are, but where you used to be.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“BOOM! Gabriel roared, leaping in his chair and clapping his hands.
Jean-François paused his writing, raised an eyebrow.
‘Must you, Silversaint?’
'Must I what?'
‘Carry on like a drunken troubadour in a brothel pantomime.'
Gabriel shrugged, refilling his goblet. 'In life, always do what you love.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“I’d rather die for something that matters than live for nothing at all. And because a man survived long enough to have a grey beard and wrinkles means not that he’s actually lived. To live is to risk. To fear and to fail. A man must dance on the dragon’s teeth to steal the fire from its tongue. Most are burned alive in the attempt. But better to dance and fall than to never have danced at all. Pity not the man who dies too soon, but the one who lingers too long. For those men who pass peaceful in their beds, who slip one night soft into sleep and wake nevermore … can they be said to have been awake at all?”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“Love is madness – or so the poets say – and a lover will do near anything to please their beloved.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“It’s a strange thing, to be a sibling. So much rancor and love. Hate and history. It’s a bond forged in iron, that tie. It takes a great deal of work to sunder it entirely. But it can be done.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“Those hurt will hurt in kind. Cruelty is an infection, spread from one victim to the next; an avalanche rolling ever downhill and crashing worst upon those at the bottom of the pile.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“BEFORE HE BURNS his bridges, a man should learn to swim.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“I heard ye were dead, de León."

""Heaven was full. And the devil was afraid to open the door.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“Better to be a bastard than a fool.'

Jean-François smiled. 'You are not a bastard, de León. You are a cunt.'

'Well. You are what you eat, vampire.'

'Charming.'

'My wife certainly thought so.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“He begged before he died, you know. Your mighty Tolyev. You all beg, Nikita. That's what they don't tell you. When you see the end coming, past all the bluff and bluster, the thees and thous, in that final moment, you all beg like fucking children. And you die like fucking dogs.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“You dare speak to me of evil?... You murdered my wife. You butchered my baby. Everything I ever loved, you took from me. And I swear, by all I am and will ever be, you will burn in hell for what you've done.

And I will see you there.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“Folk who know nothing still insist on saying something.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“We stand the weight, that others might be spared the burden.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“Una vida sin libros es una vida no vivida, Dior. En los libros hay una magya que no se encuentra en ningún otro sitio. Abrir un libro es abrir una puerta: a otro lugar, a otro tiempo, a otra mente.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“it’s impossible to reconcile the idea of a benevolent creator with a life that looks like this. To convince yourself the one above cares, when there’s so much horror and hurt and hate in the world. Only the blind can look into hellfire and smile. Only the coward raises a fist to his child and calls it love. And I was reminded of that time I spoke to Patience, then. Her little dead bird cupped in her palms. Her questions about why he died. I told you it’s hard to explain death to your child, vampire, but in truth, it’s impossible to explain any of this to anyone. So we settle. For the myth of the grand plan. For the fable of the God who loves us. We teach ourselves to believe in the lie, that all of it will make sense once we die. “But in truth, there’s no truth to any of it. We suffer because he wants it. We hurt because he wills it. We die because he likes it. And if there is a plan, coldblood, then this is the extent of it.” Gabriel waved at the walls; the dark stone around them and empty night beyond. “A world on its knees. Begging for just one moment of mercy. Bleeding its miserable last into the mouths of the monsters his own fucking son created.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“I am nae woman. I am the wild. I am the wind.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“Hope is for fools, Historian.” Gabriel met the vampire’s eyes. “Hope gets you killed. Hope walks into the fire. Faith leaps over it. I didn’t hope Dior was alive. I believed it.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“Burn bright. Burn brief. But burn.”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“We only die if we are forgotten,”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned

“Gabriel, if this is victory...what the hell does defeat look like?”
― Jay Kristoff, Empire of the Damned