Quotes from Emperor of Thorns

Mark Lawrence ·  434 pages

Rating: (33.6K votes)


“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.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“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.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“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.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“Dark times call for dark choices. Choose me.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“Every man has his thorns, not of him, but in him, deep as bones.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns



“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.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“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.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“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.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“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.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“After all, getting everything you wish for is nearly as dire a curse as having all your dreams come true.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns



“Words are blunt instruments, better suited to murder than to making sense of the world.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“Some tell it that "sorry" is the hardest word, but for me it has always been "help".”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“Nature shaped the claw to trap, and the tooth to kill, but the thorn...the thorn's only purpose is to hurt.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“If you must run, have something to run toward, so it feels less like cowardice.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“I maintain a balanced view of the world, but that balance is always in my favour.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns



“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.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“We can’t be trapped by fear. Lives lived within such walls are just slower deaths.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“It's an irony of our times that men seeking peace must make war.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“I would shake the world until its teeth rattled if that was required to have it spit out an answer.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“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.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns



“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.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“Take a rest and the world catches up with you. Lesson in life—keep moving.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“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.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“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.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“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.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns



“Pretty armour doesn't make a warrior.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“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.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“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.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“Men who are certain of everything—well perhaps they're not men at all.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns


“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.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Emperor of Thorns



About the author

Mark Lawrence
Born place: in The United States
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“At least it was never dull, my darling. And you will be remembered long after we've all turned to dust. But so will I.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, quote from Devil's Brood


“I heard the universe as an oratorio sung by a master choir of stars, accompanied by the orchestra of the planets and the percussion of satellites and moons. The aria they performed was a song to break the heart, full of tragic dissonance and deferred hope, and yet somewhere beneath it all was a piercing refrain of glory, glory, glory. And I sensed that not only the grand movements of the cosmos, but everything that had happened in my life, was a part of that song. Even the hurts that seemed most senseless, the mistakes I would have done anything to erase--nothing could make those things good, but good could still come out of them all the same, and in the end the oratorio would be no less beautiful for it.”
― R.J. Anderson, quote from Ultraviolet


“There's one good thing about making mistakes.' Thea turned to her with a smile. 'You learn not to make them again.”
― Amanda Hocking, quote from Tidal


“If it was bad that I didn’t love you, I’d know. I don’t feel like it’s bad.”
― Lucian Bane, quote from The Judgement


“The darkest secret of this country, I am afraid, is that too many of its citizens imagine that they belong to a much higher civilization somewhere else. That higher civilization doesn’t have to be another country. It can be the past instead—the United States as it was before it was spoiled by immigrants and the enfranchisement of the blacks.

This state of mind allows too many of us to lie and cheat and steal from the rest of us, to sell us junk and addictive poisons and corrupting entertainments. What are the rest of us, after all, but sub-human aborigines?”
― Kurt Vonnegut, quote from Bluebeard


Interesting books

Jane Eyre
(1.3M)
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë
Lord of the Flies
(1.8M)
Lord of the Flies
by William Golding
The Alchemist
(1.5M)
The Alchemist
by Paulo Coelho
Crime and Punishment
(482.8K)
Crime and Punishment
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Ender's Game
(0.9M)
Ender's Game
by Orson Scott Card
City of Bones
(1.3M)
City of Bones
by Cassandra Clare

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.