Quotes from Blood Song

“War is always an adventure to those who've never seen it.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“Knowledge is what shapes us, little brothers,” he told them, for once his smile was absent, his tone entirely serious. “It makes us who we are. What we know informs everything we do and every decision we make.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“Speaking it aloud would reveal the absurdity of it, and he preferred the dream.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“Men who love themselves hate those who would dim their glory.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“A fool is any man who doesn’t think he’s a fool.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“Ignorant people will believe anything if they’re scared enough.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“A man doesn't know his true strength until he fears for his life”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“Those who have not lived cannot meditate on the mysteries of life.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“Between lovers, betrayal is always the worst sin.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“When he visited the stables he found Spit also had a welcome waiting. It lasted a full two minutes and Master Rensial stated confidently it was the longest fart he had ever heard a horse produce.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“Give them the right lie and they’ll believe it.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“It was a curious effect of pain that time became infinite, every instant of agony prolonged to the ultimate.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“Vaelin knew himself to be the best swordsman among them. Dentos was master of the bow, Barkus unarmed combat, Nortah the finest rider and Caenis knew the wild like a wolf, but the sword was his.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“War is blood and shit…There’s no honour in it, Makril’s words.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“Choice is a lie. The greatest of lies.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“An hour later it had become obvious that as a swordsman Alucius made a fine poet.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“What a burden it is to have an intelligent daughter. It goes against nature for wit to be bound up in so much beauty.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“Sellin shrugged. “Times past, brother. Can’t live in ’em. Just learn from ’em.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“A warrior’s song is a lonely tune Full of fire and gone too soon Warriors sing of fallen friends Lost battles and bloody ends…”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“Trust is more important than fear.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“I knew a man once,” Al Sorna continued, “who loved a woman very much. But he had a duty to perform, a duty he knew would cost him his life, and hers too if she stayed with him. And so he tricked her and had her taken far away. Sometimes that man tries to cast his thoughts across the ocean, to see if the love they shared has turned to hate, but he finds only distant echoes of her fierce compassion, a life saved here, a kindness done there, like smoke trailing after a blazing torch. And so he wonders, does she hate me? For she has much to forgive, and between lovers,” his gaze switched from her to me, “betrayal is always the worst sin.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“Time is as much a delusion as your faith, brother. To look into the void is to see the vastness and smallness of everything at once, in an instant of terror and wonder.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“It is the lessons we learn that change us from boys to men.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“For nine more nights they trained, after an arduous day’s march, Vaelin would try to turn a poet into a swordsman.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“An axe without a blade is just a stick.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“I’ll fight but I won’t murder. His boyhood resolve coming back to him, the promise he had made to himself after saving them in the wild. I’ll kill men who face me in battle but I won’t take the sword to innocents. It felt so hollow now, so naïve.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“Battle is a hard business, sister. Soft training will make for soft soldiers, who will in turn become soft corpses.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“is just a word. You can’t eat it or drink it and yet everywhere I go men talk of it endlessly, and they all tell a different tale of what it actually means. For the Alpirans it’s all about duty, the Renfaelins think it’s the same as courage. In these islands it appears it means killing a son for a crime committed by his father then slaughtering a helpless man when the pantomime fails to go to plan.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“There,” he said, pointing. “We’ll camp on the westward slope. No fires, and it would be greatly appreciated, Baron, if your men refrained from excessive noise.” “I’ll do what I can, my lord. But they’re not peasants, y’know. Can’t just flog them like your lot.” “Maybe you should, milord,” Dentos suggested. “Remind ‘em they bleed the same colour as us peasants.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

“War is never good for commerce. Lest your trading in steel o’course.”
― Anthony Ryan, quote from Blood Song

About the author

Popular quotes

“But if you are a person who needs no one’s approval, you are probably crazy and live alone on an island or the top of a mountain somewhere.”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Guest Room

“Lina said to Fundevogel: 'Never leave me, and I will never leave you.' Fundevogel said: 'Neither now, nor ever.' Then said Lina: 'Do you become a rose-tree, and I the rose upon it.”
― Jacob Grimm, quote from Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales

“The problem is that no matter how good your intentions, eventually you want to kill someone yourself.”
― quote from Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone

“The terms which, in his inmost heart, each man knows. As I know mine. As all know. For that is the truth of it — that we all know, God, that we know, that we know, we know, we know.”
― Saul Bellow, quote from Mr. Sammler's Planet

“Sometimes we put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.”
― Jeff Wheeler, quote from The Hollow Crown

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.