Light Bringer Quotes

"how can you lead if you cannot walk—and how can you walk if you fear every step?"

"Forgetting is essential to learning, just as exhaling is essential to breathing. Breathe out, then in. Find the self, then lose it once again. Thus, the path goes ever onward."

"Worry is a spiral with death at its center"

"I married Virginia, and she married me. The Sovereign and the Reaper, they’re the shadows that come with us."

"Steel sharpens steel."

"Darrow, my goodman, my struggler. Back from the dead once more."

"I grieve for Orion. She was a shooting star, and it will be an age before mankind sees another one quite like her. I grieve for Alexandar. I know you took him on as a debt to Lorn and grew to love him, despite seeing so much of yourself in him. He was the best Gold of his generation, but he set to make himself in your image, a Red’s, and he did. When the waves came for Tyche, he proved he lived for more."

"I grieve for Theodora. All her life Theodora was coveted, not valued. You valued her, and she loved you for it. I have never known a Pink so pure in their loyalty. She was resourceful, intelligent, but most of all she found contentment in her service to you, then to the Republic as its great spymaster. True contentment melded with purpose. Something that evades so many of us. She was a hero to our Color. All free Pinks hail her name. It was her honor to serve you, and my honor to know her."

"I am sorry for Mercury, Darrow. That you did not get reinforcements because of the Senate’s failings. I grieve for the Free Legions."

"I grieve for Dancer. I have never met a truer spirit than Dancer,” Matteo continues. “He was born a leper amongst the downtrodden and rose to become a prince of men. He was virtuous and true, the way men should be. He was stubborn, sometimes naïve, but never stupid. He adored you, the boy we helped make a man. And he adored the man too, even if he had to stand in your way sometimes."

"I thought I would take solace in the fact that they are all starving now, having traded the Republic for a cabal of maniacs, deviants, clones, Boneriders, Grimmuses, and, worst of all—socialists,” Quick says as I walk through the riot. Sevro doesn’t follow me deeper into the room. He remains at the entrance to the study, where he leans with his back against the wall, eyes restless and searching for danger. “I don’t feel satisfaction. If anything I feel…nothing."

"I once overheard Magnus au Grimmus tell your old companion Roque that losing an army will either make a man a philosopher or a suicide. Glad you chose differently than Fabii."

"I was born too late to explore the seas, and I am too wicked to explore heaven, so the stars will have to do. This, my boy, is an interstellar generation ship. An introvert’s boyhood dream that he now gets to share with his lifelong love."

"You see, boys. It’s not Gold that’s the problem, not entirely at least. Even if we kill them all, their work will endure. The Colors are the problem. The hierarchy itself. And those children down there, our children, they are not Gold, not Red, not Blue, nor Green. They are Homo sapiens, and they deserve to inherit more than the sins of our world."

"The last time I saw him, I put a spoon in his hand, and told him I’d give him his life for the price of one eye.” His thumb glides around the iris of the eye embedded in his ring. “I was true to my word. After he’d given me the eye, I had him sealed in a life pod powered by a nuclear generator and shot it into deep space. That was thirty-eight years ago. This ring receives his heartbeat from time to time.” I feel a little sick. “He’s still alive, hooked to the nutrient pods, unable to move, willing but unable to die. He will only be eighty-two when we pass him."

"You know, I always called you the best investment I ever made, Darrow. But for a long time now, you’ve been more than that.” He looks away, estranged from his own vulnerability. “For many years, I’ve thought of you as a son."

"So you’re just gonna let that arrogant piece of shit waddle off to the ass-end of space,” Sevro mutters. “He shouldn’t get a happy ending."

"I believe a man can walk out of his own darkness"

"Darrow is not the hugest man I’ve ever met, but he is the only man I’ve ever met who makes his own gravity."

"I sway knowing only a portion of what those eyes have seen. Eo hanging. Armadas burning. A Sovereign dying on his blade. For a horrifying second, I realize what it must be like to be him. The man cursed to use the weapons of the enemy to liberate people like me."

"Darrow is all weight and silence. Sevro is like staring into a woodchipper, not sure if it’s coming your way."

"It is a noble thing to keep the beasts from the door. Whatever people say, they could not say it if you didn’t."

"It is in your hands now. You know what I think. But I’m an old coward. Prove me wrong."

"Ares was a warrior. Athena is…a builder."

"You have a callsign already?” “Red Banshee,” I say. “It’s rude to start a friendship with lies,” he replies. “What is it really? You can be honest with me.” I grimace. “Truffle Pig.” “Oh dear.” A smile creeps across his face. “You really shouldn’t have told me that."