“Resist faith. Resist trust. Believe only in what you touch with your hands. The rest is error and air.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“Assume nothing,’” he said. The first chapter of the Tactics. “If we figure everyone might be a murderer, we’re less likely to be disappointed.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“Men tend to die when you slide steel beneath their skin and wiggle it around. Even priests.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“You squint hard enough, and everything starts to look suspicious.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“Any fool can see what's there. You need to see what is not there.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“There’s no blade as keen as surprise.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“we use the time we have. There is no other.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“Believe what you see with your eyes; trust what you hear with your ears; know what you feel with your flesh. The rest is dream and delusion.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“The man still fighting last week’s battle will always lose to the man already fighting tomorrow’s,”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“The mind was a clay pot set out in the rain. A monk could empty it daily and still the old hopes and worries, the body’s meager strengths and perennial pains pattered against the bottom, trickled down the sides, filling it once more.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“Easier to recall a loosed falcon than a spoken word.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“When you know nothing about a creature," the monk ground out, his voice as hard as a rock slide, "expect it has come to kill you.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“The fighters who frighten you are not the fighters to fear. The man you barely notice will be the one to bury a blade in your back.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“If you hope to play a part in this empire, Sanlitun had told her time and time again, you must learn to divorce your feelings from your face. The world sees what you allow it to see, judges you according to what you reveal.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“Henderson Jakes, the founder of the Eyrie, had envisioned a cadre of elite soldiers dedicated to celibacy, the empire, and the art of war. He had to settle for two out of three. Young men and women willing to leap off massive birds into burning buildings at a mere nod from a commanding officer grew violently rebellious when required to abstain from sex.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“The present is the present. Tomorrow will still be ‘now.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“Leadership isn't just about giving orders. A fool can give orders. A leader listens. He changes his mind. He acknowledges mistakes.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“Obedience is a knife that cuts the cord of bondage.
Silence is a hammer that shatters the walls of speech.
Stillness is strength; pain a soft bed.
Put down your basin; emptiness is the only vessel.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“Triste lay in a heap, her dress hitched up around her thighs, whimpering and shuddering until Gwenna shifted to kick her ungently in the head.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“The process is the goal,” Kaden responded innocently, trying not to feel smug. It was about time one of those Shin maxims worked in his favor.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“What I observe is that the world is ruled by men—good men and bad, desperate men and those with principles.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“I’d leave you here longer, but it’s no longer safe.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“Emptiness exists only when something else has been gouged away.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“I’m doubly sorry for your loss,” the old monk began after a time. “First, because every son should have a chance to know his father, not as a child knows his protector, but as a man knows another man.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“every son should have a chance to know his father, not as a child knows his protector, but as a man knows another man.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“The ablest swordsman, Hendran wrote, the consummate tactician, the peerless general: All seem invulnerable until luck turns against them. Make no mistake—place a man in death’s way enough times, and his luck will turn.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“dozens of groups of seven to sit on the dozens of trials that would take place, each group composed, as decreed by Terial himself, of the Seven: a mother, a merchant, a pauper, a prelate, a soldier, a son, and a dying man.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“Believe what you see with your eyes, trust what you hear with your ears; know what you feel with your flesh. The rest is dream and delusion.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
“Our lives were short, no more than a blink to the foes we fought, but we were fertile. Fathers fought our battles, but it was our mothers who won the war.”
― Brian Staveley, quote from The Emperor's Blades
Brian Staveley
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“I also read that spending time with a pedophile can be like a drug high. There was this girl who said it’s as if the pedophile lives in a fantastic kind of reality, and that fantasticness infects everything. Kind of like they’re children themselves, only full of the knowledge that children don’t have. Their imaginations are stronger than kids’ and they can build realities that small kids would never be able to dream up. They can make the child’s world… ecstatic somehow. And when it’s over, for people who’ve been through this, it’s like coming off of heroin and, for years, they can’t stop chasing the ghost of how it felt. One girl said that it’s like the earth is scorched and the grass won’t grow back. And the ground looks black and barren but inside it’s still burning.”
― Margaux Fragoso, quote from Tiger, Tiger: A Memoir
“Blood—” I rasped. “The earth cannot hold all the blood that’s shed on it. And so the stream flows below. We have passed through it now; soon it will be gone from you.”
― Ellen Kushner, quote from Thomas the Rhymer
“The big threat of photoshopification is not that we will believe documents and photos are fake. Its that we'll find it easier to disbelieve documents and photos that are real, when its convenient.”
― Brooke Gladstone, quote from The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media
“We have very primative emotions. It's impossible not to be competitive. Spoils everything, though.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from Green Hills of Africa
“In what ways can people experience God today? (4:8–10) In some respects, experiencing God is like experiencing air. We rarely think about air, yet our lives are fully dependent on its unseen presence. It’s the same with God: although we may ignore God (Isa 1:2–4; 17:10), deny his existence (Ps 14:1) or even be ignorant of who he is (Ac 17:22–23, 30), we remain as connected to God as a fish is connected to the water in which it thrives. However, people certainly do experience God on many different occasions and in many different ways: seeing the power of creation (Ps 29:1–11); experiencing the warmth of a caring community (Gal 6:2); being the recipient of specific acts of kindness (Eph 4:32); hearing the testimonies of others (Mt 5:13–16); observing God’s work in the lives of others (1Th 1:2–10); having dreams or visions (Da 7:1–8:27); reading the words of Scripture (Ps 119:1–176); observing miracles or mighty wonders (Jn 12:20–33); or having direct interaction with the divine presence of God (Ex 33:1–23). Some of these are fairly common experiences, while others happen only occasionally or under special circumstances.”
― quote from Quest Study Bible: NIV
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