Pierce Brown quotes

Don't you find it peculiar? The human conviction that we are the heirs of history instead of paragraphs that are almost over. A survival mechanism, no doubt. (Pierce Brown)
You have everything, Karnus. Wealth. Power. Seven brothers and sisters. How many cousins? Nieces? Nephews? A father and mother who love you, yet... you are here, drinking alone, killing my friends. Setting the purpose of your life to ending me. Why?" "Because you wronged my family. No one wrongs the Bellona and lives." "So it's pride." "It's always pride." "Pride is just a shout into the wind." He shakes his head, voice deepening. "I will die. You will die. We will all die and the universe will carry on without care. All that we have is that shout into the wind - how we live. How we go. And how we stand before we fall." He leans forward. "So you see, pride is the only thing. View quote
Pierce Brown
I breathe in the full scent of her. If it ends tomorrow or in eighty years, I could breathe her for the rest of my life. But I want more. I need more. I tilt her slender jaw up with my hand so that she's looking at me. I was going to say something important. Something memorable. But I've forgotten it in her eyes. That gulf that divided us is still there, filled with questions and recrimination and guilt, but that's only part of love, part of being human. Everything is cracked, everything is stained except the fragile moments that hang crystalline in time and make life worth living. View quote
Pierce Brown
Yes. I'm alone. I would have thought there to be worse fates than this, but now I know there are none. Man is no island. We need those who love us. We need those who hate us. We need others to tether us to life, to give us a reason to live, to feel. View quote
Pierce Brown
War is chaos. It always has been. But technology makes it worse. It changes the fear. At the Institute, I feared men. I feared what Titus and the Jackal could do to me. You see death coming there and can at least struggle against it. Here, you don't have such luxury. Modern war is fearing the air, the shadows, fearing the silence. Death will come and I won't even see it. View quote
Pierce Brown
Humans are always negotiating. That's what conversation is. Someone has something, knows something. Someone wants something. View quote
Pierce Brown
How can I feel so melancholy for so terrible a past? Maybe it's just the nature of us, ever wishing for things that were and could be rather than things that are and will be. View quote
Pierce Brown
In war, men lose what makes them great. Their creativity. Their wisdom. Their joy. All that's left is their utility. War is not monstrous for making corpses of men so much as it is for making machines of them. And woe to those who have no use in war except to feed the machines. View quote
Pierce Brown
They call him father, liberator, warlord, Reaper. But he feels a boy as he falls toward the pale blue planet, his armor red, his army vast, his heart heavy. It is the tenth year of war and the thirty-second of his life. View quote
Pierce Brown
Is a man a coward if he realizes that bravery is just a myth the old tell the young so they line up for the meatgrinder? View quote
Pierce Brown
Only humanity could grasp the stars and then let them slip through its fingers for the pettiness in its heart. (Pierce Brown)
I do not feel brave. I am not the center of this symphony. No one even cares if I am here. Where is the immortal majesty the poets promised me? Where is the stern will my ancestors preached to their children? It was just an illusion conjured by fools who never left their libraries, or by agents of necessity. This is the Noble Lie. View quote
Pierce Brown
A moving mind is always fed. At rest, mine eats itself. View quote
Pierce Brown
I think, as with all things, honor is best appreciated in moderation. As is cruelty. View quote
Pierce Brown
You know I believe we all begin equal parts light and dark. I fear you think your strength lies in your darkness. But the measure of a man is not the fear he sows in his enemies. It is the hope he gives his friends. View quote
Pierce Brown
The tragedy of the gifted is the belief they are entitled to greatness, Lysander. As a human, you are entitled only to death. View quote
Pierce Brown
What devious designs freedom requires. One must worry about the strength of a principle when it must compromise itself so often to survive. View quote
Pierce Brown
Life is meant to be felt. Else why live? Valleys make the mountains. View quote
Pierce Brown
Nothing beautiful survives the mob. View quote
Pierce Brown
Tradition is the crown of the tyrant. View quote
Pierce Brown
If pain is the weight of being, love is the purpose. (Pierce Brown)
It's hard for me to speak to you as if you were not a tyrant," I say. "You sit here and think you are more civilized than Luna because you obey your creed of honor, because you show restraint." I gesture to the simple house. "But you're not more civilized," I say. You're just more disciplined." "Isn't that civilization? Order? Denying animal impulses for stability? View quote
Pierce Brown
Lies are rust on iron. A blemish on power. View quote
Pierce Brown
All my people sing of are memories. And so I will remember this death. It will burden me as it does not burden my fellow students - I must not let that change. I must not become like them. I'll remember that every sin, every death, every sacrifice, is for freedom. View quote
Pierce Brown
You are a worm who thought himself a serpent just because you slither. But your power was not real, Pliny. It was all a dream. Time now to wake. View quote
Pierce Brown