Quotes from Prince of Thorns

“Tell me, tutor,' I said. 'Is revenge a science, or an art?”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“Memories are dangerous things. You turn them over and over, until you know every touch and corner, but still you'll find an edge to cut you.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“There’s something brittle in me that will break before it bends.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“Hate will keep you alive where love fails”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“The biggest lies we save for ourselves.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“I’ll tell you now. That silence almost beat me. It’s the silence that scares me. It’s the blank page on which I can write my own fears. The spirits of the dead have nothing on it. The dead one tried to show me hell, but it was a pale imitation of the horror I can paint on the darkness in a quiet moment.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“Anything that you cannot sacrifice pins you. Makes you predictable, makes you weak.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“Few things worth having can be got easily.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“Cowards make the best torturers. Cowards understand fear and they can use it.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“When they killed him, Mother wouldn't hold her peace, so they slit her throat. I was stupid then, being only nine, and I fought to save them both. But the thorns held me tight. I've learned to appreciate thorns since. The thorns taught me the game. They let me understand what all those grim and serious men who've fought the Hundred War have yet to learn. You can only win the game when you understand that it IS a game. Let a man play chess, and tell him that every pawn is his friend. Let him think both bishops holy. Let him remember happy days in the shadows of his castles. Let him love his queen. Watch him loose them all.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“I may be running out of options, but running out isn't an option.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“Lucifer spoke thus. Pride took him from heaven, though he sat at God's right hand.' Her voice grew faint, the hint of a whisper. 'In the end pride is the only evil, the root of all sins.'
'Pride is all I have.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“Most men have at least one redeeming feature. Finding one for Brother Rike requires a stretch. Is 'big' a redeeming feature?”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“You soon learn there’s no elegance or dignity in death if you spend time in the castle kitchens. You learn how ugly it is, and how good it tastes.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“I think maybe we die every day. Maybe we're born new each dawn, a little changed, a little further on our own road. When enough days stand between you and the person you were, you're strangers. Maybe that's what growing up is. Maybe I have grown up.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“Some men are too dull to feel what might happen. Others torture themselves with maybes and populate their dreams with horrors more terrible than their worst enemy could inflict upon them.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“Running ain't no bad thing. Leastways if you run in the right direction.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“You can only win the game when you understand that it is a game. Let a man play chess, and tell him that every pawn is his friend. Let him think both bishops holy. Let him remember happy days in the shadows of his castles. Let him love his queen. Watch him lose them all.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“You got responsibilities when you’re a leader. You got a responsibility not to kill too many of your men. Or who’re you going to lead?”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“What's it going to take for you to open that door? Gold? Blood?"

"Your name and password."

"My name is Honorous Jorg Ancrath, my password is divine right. Now open the fecking door.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“The way to break the cycle is to kill every single one of the bastards that fucked you over. Every last one of them. Kill them all. Kill their mother, kill their brothers, kill their children, kill their dog.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“This is where it starts. When they write the legend, this will be the first page. Some old monk will go blind illuminating this page, Makin. This is where it all starts." I didn't say how short the book might be though.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“Memories are dangerous things. You turn them over and over, until you know every touch and corner, but still you’ll find an edge to cut you.” I looked into my own darkness. I knew what it was to be trapped, and to watch ruination. “Each day the memories weigh a little heavier. Each day they drag you down that bit further. You wind them around you, a single thread at a time, and you weave your own shroud, you build a cocoon, and in it madness grows.” The lights pulsed beneath my fingers, ebbing and flowing to the beat of my voice. “You sit here with your yesterdays queuing at your shoulder. You listen to their reproach and curse those that gave you life.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“She had the eyes of everyone who ever cared.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“Gomst's mouth framed a 'no', but every other muscle in him said 'yes'. You'd think priests would be better liars, what with their jobs and all.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“In the end it seems we're just toys, easy to break and hard to mend.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“We wrap up our violent and mysterious world in a pretense of understanding. We paper over the voids of our comprehension with science and religion, and make believe that order has been imposed. And, for the most of it, the fiction works. We skim across the surfaces, heedless of the depths below. Dragonflies flitting over a lake, miles deep, pursuing erratic paths to pointless ends. Until that moment when something from the cold unknown reaches up to take us.
The biggest lies we save for ourselves. We play a game in which we are gods, in which we make choices, and the current follows in our wake. We pretend a separation from the wild. Pretend that a man’s control runs deep, that civilization is more than a veneer, that reason will be our companion in dark places.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“I like mountains, always have done. Big obstinate bits of rock sticking up where they're not wanted and getting in folk's way. Great. Climbing them is a different matter altogether though. I hate that.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“That's not a plan. That's a way to get a death so famously stupid that they'll be laughing about it in alehouses for a hundred years to come," Makin said.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

“I've been known to be contrary. When something pushes me, I shove back. Even if the one doing the pushing is me. It would have been easy to gut him then and there. Satisfying. But the need was too urgent. I felt pushed.”
― Mark Lawrence, quote from Prince of Thorns

About the author

Popular quotes

“Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.”
― Ayn Rand, quote from Atlas Shrugged

“It is one thing to write as poet and another to write as a historian: the poet can recount or sing about things not as they were, but as they should have been, and the historian must write about them not as they should have been, but as they were, without adding or subtracting anything from the truth.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, quote from Don Quixote

“When he'd sworn at her and been sworn at in return, they became great friends.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from The Golden Compass

“She wanted something else, something different, something more. Passion and romance, perhaps, or maybe quiet conversations in candlelit rooms, or perhaps something as simple as not being second.”
― Nicholas Sparks, quote from The Notebook

“There was a clatter as the basilisk fangs cascaded out of Hermione's arms. Running at Ron, she flung them around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth. Ron threw away the fangs and broomstick he was holding and responded with such enthusiasm that he lifted Hermione off her feet.
"Is this the moment?" Harry asked weakly, and when nothing happened except that Ron and Hermione gripped each other still more firmly and swayed on the spot, he raised his voice. "OI! There's a war going on here!"
Ron and Hermione broke apart, their arms still around each other.
"I know, mate," said Ron, who looked as though he had recently been hit on the back of the head with a Bludger, "so it's now or never, isn't it?"
"Never mind that, what about the Horcrux?" Harry shouted. "D'you think you could just --- just hold it in, until we've got the diadem?"
"Yeah --- right --- sorry ---" said Ron, and he and Hermione set about gathering up fangs, both pink in the face.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

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.