Emperor of Thorns

This is where the wise man turns away. This is where the holy kneel and call on God. These are the last miles, my brothers. Don't look to me to save you. Don't think I will not spend you. Run if you have the wit. Pray if you have the soul. Stand your ground if courage is yours. But don't follow me. Follow me, and I will break your heart.

No half measures. Some things can’t be cut in half. You can’t half-love someone. You can’t half-betray, or half-lie.

There's a slope down toward evil, a gentle gradient that can be ignored at each step, unfelt. It's not until you look back, see the distant heights where you once lived, that you understand your journey.

Dark times call for dark choices. Choose me.

Every man has his thorns, not of him, but in him, deep as bones.

Hurt spreads and grows and reaches out to break what’s good. Time heals all wounds, but often it’s only by the application of the grave, and while we live some hurts live with us, burning, making us twist and turn to escape them. And as we twist, we turn into other men.

I kissed her cheek then, because I feared to do it and though commonsense may occasionally bind me, I'll be fucked if fear will.

When you're in a dark place, and your light is going to run out before too long, you get on with things. It's a wonder to me how few people apply that same logic to their lives.

I knew myself broken, to burn over every refusal, to feel my blood rise at the slightest provocation, but knowing and fixing are different things.

After all, getting everything you wish for is nearly as dire a curse as having all your dreams come true.

Words are blunt instruments, better suited to murder than to making sense of the world.

Some tell it that "sorry" is the hardest word, but for me it has always been "help".

Nature shaped the claw to trap, and the tooth to kill, but the thorn...the thorn's only purpose is to hurt.

If you must run, have something to run toward, so it feels less like cowardice.

I maintain a balanced view of the world, but that balance is always in my favour.

There are truths you know but will not speak. Even to yourself in the darkness where we are all of us alone. There are memories you see and yet don't see.

We can’t be trapped by fear. Lives lived within such walls are just slower deaths.

It's an irony of our times that men seeking peace must make war.

I would shake the world until its teeth rattled if that was required to have it spit out an answer.

There's a road to hell that is paved with good intentions but it's a long route. The quicker path is paved with the kind of ignorance that clever men who just don't want to know are best at.

Every man has his thorns, not of him, but in him, deep as bones. The scars of the briar mark me, a calligraphy of violence, a message of blood-writ, requiring a lifetime to translate.

Take a rest and the world catches up with you. Lesson in life—keep moving.

People who talk about the weather would be better served by admitting they've nothing to say but like the sound of their own voice.

Clarity of vision is a thing much prized. I find when you turn that clear sight upon yourself—and see through to the truth behind your own actions—it might be better to be blind.

But I respected his instincts as a killer and I liked the honesty of the man. And who was I to judge? I'd F'ed a necromancer and killed a Pope within the space of a week.

My enemies defeated, and yet the sorrow remained, keener, more true, more clean, for I had always owned it. It echoed back to the thorns, the tone of a bell resounding through the years. We're fashioned by our sorrows - not by joy - they are the undercurrent, the refrain. Joy is fleeting.

Two dozen--and yet you killed all but one?" The provost arched a brow and set her quill down again as if unwilling to record a falsehood. "Dear lady, I killed them from youngest child to oldest woman, and when I was done I blunted three axes dismembering their corpses. I am Jorg of Ancrath--I burned ten thousand in Gelleth and didn't think it too many.

Men who are certain of everything—well perhaps they're not men at all.

A man can reach into anything and turn it to his cause. It's not want, or desire, just certainty. Only be assured that whatever you reach into will reach into you in turn.