Quotes from The Painted Man

“Let others determine your worth and you're already lost, because no one wants people worth more than themselves.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“Welcome to adulthood." Cob said. "Every child finds a day when they realize that adults can be weak and wrong just like everyone else. After that day, you are an adult. Like it or not.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“We are what we choose to be, girl,' she said. 'Let others determine your worth, and you've already lost, because no one wants people worth more than themselves.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“I don't pretend to see the path, but I know it's there all the same. One day, we'll look back and wonder how we ever missed it.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“Choose a book," she said. "Any book. Bring it here, and I'll show you what else the world can offer.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“People make the world go, and Mothers make people, so they lead the dance.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“There are times in life when we feel so very alive that when they pass, we feel … diminished. When that happens, we’ll do almost anything to feel so alive again.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“Because Ragen is kind hearted and strong at the same time, and I know how rare that kind of man is. Because I never doubted that he loved me, and would come back. But most of all, because the moments I had with him were worth all the ones apart.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“There's a wide world out there, for those willing to brave the dark.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“Hiding isn't always enough, Arlen,' Ragen said. 'Sometimes, hiding kills something inside of you, so that even if you survive the demons, you don't really.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“I'll take my chances with this life all the same. The next one will find you no matter where you run. No sense chasing it.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“You can't help everyone, Arlen," Ragen said, "but you should make every
effort to help those you can.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“I learned a lot from this book, because I wrote it myself. My rating may be somewhat biased as a result.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“Rojer nodded, but his eye grew wet. Leesha squeezed his hand. "Herb Gatherers see death often," she told him. "No one, no one, ever goes to the Creator with all their business complete. We all get a different length of time, but it needs to be enough, regardless.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“We cannot tell the rain when to come, nor the winter, nor the cold.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“It doesn't serve the dead to stop living yourself, out of guilt.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“Few could match her wisdom, and fewer still her stubbornness.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“Let people hide in their homes, caged like chickens. Cowards deserve no better.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“Why would you do that for me?” Leesha asked.
Rojer smiled, taking her hand in his crippled one. “We're survivors, aren't we?” he asked. “Someone once told me that survivors have to look out for one another.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“There's other ways to protect yourself and your family, Arlen. Wisdom. Prudence. Humility. It's not brave to fight a battle you can't win.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“Don't be so quick to leave childhood behind, girl," Bruna said. "You'll find you miss it when its gone.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“Walk with me.” Abban held up his crutch.
“It is a long way to the palace, Par’chin,” he said.
“I’ll walk slowly,” Arlen said, knowing the crutch had nothing to do with the refusal.
“You don’t want to be seen with me outside the market, my friend,” Abban warned. “That alone may cost you the respect you’ve earned in the Maze.”
“Then I’ll earn more,” Arlen said. “What good is respect, if I can’t walk with my friend?”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“He took a step back the way he had come.
No, he decided. Going back is Da's way. Whatever happens, I'm going forward.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“The boy was weeping openly when Leesha turned back to him. “Just put me back out into the night,” he said, holding up a crippled hand. “I was meant to die a long time ago, and everyone that tries to save me ends up dead.”
Leesha took the crippled hand in hers and looked him in the eye. “I'll take my chances,” she said, squeezing. “We survivors have to look out for one another.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“Rojer!” his mother cried, stumbling towards the washing trough before falling to her knees. Screaming in pain, she reached back and got a firm grip on one of the coreling's horns.
“You... can't... have... my... son!” she screamed, and threw herself forward, pulling on the horn with all her strength. Torn from its perch, the demon took ribbons of flesh with it, as Kally flipped it into the trough.
Soaking crockery shattered on impact, and the flame demon gurgled and thrashed, steam filling the air as the water was brought to an instant boil. Kally screamed as her arms burned, but she held the creature under until its thrashes stopped.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“You can fight corelings?' he asked.
'You can fight anything, Arlen,' Ragen said. 'The problem with fighting corelings is that more often than not, you lose.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“They follow their hearts. I know it sounds like madness, Arlen, but deep down, men want to fight, like they did in tales of old. They want to protect their women and children as men should. But they can't, because the great wards are lost, so they knot themselves like caged hares, sitting terrified through the night. But sometimes, especially when you see loved ones die, the tension breaks you and you just snap.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“I’m not going to hide away and leave my friends to the corelings!” she shouted. “We’ll find a way to ward the Holy House, and make our stand here. Together! And if demons should dare come and try to take my children, I have secrets of fire that will burn them from this world!”
My children, Leesha thought, in the sudden silence that followed. Am I Bruna now, to think of them so?
She looked around, taking in the scared and sooty faces, not a one taking charge, and realized for the first time that as far as everyone was concerned, she was Bruna. She was Herb Gatherer for Cutter's Hollow now. Sometimes that meant bringing healing, and sometimes...
Sometimes it meant a dash of pepper in the eyes, or burning a wood demon in your yard.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

“Bruna nodded. “We keep the knowledge of the old world for the day it will be needed again, but that knowledge comes with a great responsibility. If the histories of the ancient wars of man tell us anything, it’s that men cannot be trusted with the secrets of fire.”
― Peter V. Brett, quote from The Painted Man

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Popular quotes

“It does not seem to me, Austerlitz added, that we understand the laws governing the return of the past, but I feel more and more as if time did not exist at all, only various spaces interlocking according to the rules of a higher form of stereometry, between which the living and the dead can move back and forth as they like, and the longer I think about it the more it seems to me that we who are still alive are unreal in the eyes of the dead, that only occasionally, in certain lights and atmospheric conditions, do we appear in their field of vision.”
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