Dark Age Quotes

"Let the slaves tremble."

"You think this is about me. It isn’t. Darrow thinks this is about good and evil. It isn’t. This is about order and chaos. I have chosen my side."

"The courage of a soldier is heightened by her knowledge of her profession."

"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?"

"Only humanity could grasp the stars and then let them slip through its fingers for the pettiness in its heart."

"Better dead than a coward"

"Be a giant"

"I hope everyone relished their breakfast. You’ll see it again soon."

"An omega-atomic will impact in thirty seconds,” I say quietly. The Red outside my cockpit is listening too, his face pressed to the glass just two hand spans away from my own. “Your fight is behind you. Remember now your beloved. Your wife, your husband, your father, your mother, your daughter, your son.” I meet his eyes. They look so much like my mother’s. “Remember the sea, the highland forests, Agea at dawn, Olympia at twilight, Attica in spring, Thessalonica in harvest.” As I speak, they close their eyes and unscrew the canisters of Martian soil to clench in their hands. Gold and Red, Blue and Orange, Gray and Obsidian. My heart breaks in half. “Remember home. Remember Mars. You go there now to rest under the shade of her—"

"Your sensors picked up some people.” She levers to her feet as I climb into my cockpit. “Did your sensors tell you they didn’t have weapons? No. Did they tell you they weren’t saboteurs or snipers? No. Or even Howlers? No. So how can mercy exist when anyone could carry an atomic rocket, and you don’t know? That’s the problem with this war. Cruelty is necessary. Yet cruelty is a thermal runaway."

"I know what I am."

"From a distance, death seems the end of a story. But when you are near, when you can smell the burning skin, see the entrails, you see death for what it is. A traumatic cauterization of a life thread. No purpose. No conclusion. Just snip. I knew war was dreadful, but I did not expect to fear it. How can anyone not, when death is just a blind giant with scissors?"

"Before all else, Praetorians are equestrians. Before they learn to shoot, they shovel stable stalls. Each is given a young horse to train while at the ludus. At the end of their training, they are given a gun and told to kill the horse. The mindless killers that do are bound for the blackops legions. Only those that prove themselves loyal to their comrades, be they beast or man, are trusted to guard the Blood."

"Should the Void take you, celebrate, my brother. For before death, there was glory."

"As violence reaches for him, Darrow does not flinch like a man; he reaches like a covetous river. He pulls violence to him, drinks it into his current, and leaps around the battlefield with a seemingly mindless capriciousness. Which, when inspected, illuminates the genius of his violence. He herds us together, making sure we are tight and compact so that our options constrict and his men’s expand."

"You asked, what do I fear? I fear a man who believes in good. For he can excuse any evil."

"After the Conquest of Earth, the powerful houses engaged in a land grab,” Holiday replies. “Silenius was faced with a dilemma. To his left, anarchy. To his right, tyranny. Instead, he found the narrow path between. Barely wide enough for the edge of a stiletto."

"Never trust the man who sleeps under siege. He’s either lazy or disloyal."

"What good is being smarter than everyone if no one listens?"

"Sarcastic ripostes are seldom clever enough to prove that they are little more than the desperate cries for validation of a petty and insecure mind."

"Senator Telemanus. I must admit, the architecture certainly makes a statement. It is a remarkable man who can bare his balls to the world."

"I confess. I have always viewed Sevro as a marginal character in our great endeavor. He is ill-tempered, rash, and braggadocious in nature. I don’t know if he’s ever read a book. Let me loose, and I will subdue the illiterate halfman in short order."

"Matter, how tiny my share Time, how brief my allotment Fate, how small my roll to play Self, all that can be mastered"

"To be weak is miserable, doing or suffering."

"Chop ’em if they’re taller. Stomp ’em if they’re smaller. Mauler, brawler, legacy hauler, smoke that crow, earn this holler. Mauler, brawler, legacy hauler, smoke that ant, pay off your collar. Legio! Aeterna! Victrix!"