Darrow O'Lykos Quotes

"Victra vibrates next to me. I remember sitting with her in Mickey’s lab as she told me how she loves the smell of battle. The old sweat in the gloves. The oil on the guns. The pulled muscles and shaking hands afterward. It’s the honesty of it, I realize. That’s what she loves. Battle never lies."

"This is the grind of war. No matter the tech or the tactics, it all comes down to terrifying moments crouching chalk-mouthed at a corner as a friend lays down cover fire and you try not to trip over the hi-tech gear that’s wrapped around your body as you advance, head lowered, legs churning. It’s not bravery, it’s fear of shaming yourself in the eyes of your friends that keeps you moving."

"I wish Roque would have thought he was going to a better world. But he died believing only in Gold, and anything that believes only in itself cannot go happily into the night."

"Fear no more the heat o’ the sun Nor the furious winter’s rages, Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages; Golden lads and girls all must As chimney sweepers come to dust"

"just because a lion lets you pet it doesn’t mean it’s tame."

"There’s moments in life where you’re walking ahead so intent on your task that you forget to look down until you feel knee-deep in quicksand."

"They do not know the spirit in Cassius, the nobility of a man who would have given his life for his family, but was cursed to live while they all died. They see a monster. A seven-foot-tall former god now mostly naked, humbled, strangling on his own hubris. I see a man trying his best in a world that doesn’t give a shit. It breaks my heart."

"Everything is cracked, everything is stained except the fragile moments that hang crystalline in time and make life worth living."

"If the Sovereign wishes to speak with me, then let her do it herself. Not through a lackey’s mouth. Tell the hag we’re here for war. Not words."

"That is the peril of a solar empire: all the power in all the worlds means nothing if it is in the wrong place."

"If we lose today, a new generation of Gold will rise with vigor unseen since the fall of Earth. They will see the threat to their people and they will breed creatures like Aja and the Jackal by the thousands. They’ll build new Institutes, expand their military, and throttle my people. That is the future that could be. The one Fitchner feared the most. The one I fear is coming as I watch the Jackal move past me into the room."

"I used to think the life strands of my friends frayed around me, because mine was too strong. Now I realize that when we are wound together, we make something unbreakable. Something that lasts long after this life ends."

"whether they wait for me in the Vale or not, I feel them in my heart, I hear their echo beating across the worlds. I see them in my son, and, when he is old enough, I will take him on my knee and his mother and I will tell him of the rage of Ares, the strength of Ragnar, the honor of Cassius, the love of Sevro, the loyalty of Victra, and the dream of Eo, the girl who inspired me to live for more."

"After ten years of war, I no longer believe in moments of peace."

"He’s larger than I remember, older, and it feels so impossible that he could have come from me. That he could have thoughts of his own. That he’ll love, smile, die like the rest of us."

"I always thought when I became a man, I’d feel more confident, but towering over this boy, I feel so very small. I lost my own father to a cause; have I doomed Pax to the same fate?"

"Sadly, not all adversaries are enemies."

"At first I thought it strange living in the house of my greatest enemy, but in all humanity, who knew the burdens Mustang and I face as well as Octavia? In life, I loathed her. In death, I understand her."

"My wife is not as fickle as a flame. She is an ocean. I knew from the first that I cannot own her, cannot tame her, but I am the only storm that moves her depths and stirs her tides. And that is more than enough."

"For those who dine with war and empire, the bill always comes at the end."

"You know, Pebs, if Sevro is the father of the Howlers, you just might be the mother."

"How do you prepare for a kick in the balls? You don’t. You suck it up."

"The Ash Lord was right. Nothing of the Red remains. I am trapped in my duty. Like Lorn. Like Magnus himself. Like Octavia. Sevro and I did not understand them when we were boys. But now that we are men, we become them."

"War is our time. Sevro thought he could escape it. I thought I could end it. But our enemy is like the Hydra. Cut off one head, two more sprout. They will not sue for peace. They will not surrender. Their heart must be excised, their will to fight ground to the finest dust. Only then will there be peace."

"A moving mind is always fed. At rest, mine eats itself."