Hatred is like a plague. It is all-consuming, and it springs from man to man.
Once I was a lamb, playing in a green field. Then the wolves came. Now I am an eagle and I fly in a different universe.
The world would be a sadder place without stories.
All wars are started by angry old men, but they are fought by young men who die for reasons that are beyond them. In the end, the same old men sit around tables and the war ends. Nothing is achieved. Nothing is gained. New faces move into old castles, and the sons of the dead build families ready to feed new battleground graveyards.
Only a fool loves war,” said Calvar, “or a man who has never seen it. The trouble is that the survivors forget about the horrors and remember only the battle lust. They pass on that memory, and other men hunger for it.
What do all men seek? I want to be happy. I would like a wife and sons one day. But I want them to grow in a land where there is hope for the future, where men do not take to the road. If that is a hopeless dream – and maybe it is – then I will sire no sons. I will wander, and play my harp, and weave my magick until the end.
I remember an old teacher of mine once saying that behind every dark cloud the sun was just waiting to boil you to death.
If a million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
My happiness is not in the gift of others. I will be happy or I will not be happy. No man will supply it or deprive me of it.
It is the nature of men to build walls around themselves. They think it will protect them from hurt. It does the opposite. The hurt still gets in, but now it rattles around the walls, unable to get out. So you build more walls. You are now seeing the world without walls. You are free, Ro. Free to hurt and free to heal.
You can buy gold that is bright as the sun and diamonds as pale as the moon. But you cannot buy the sun. You cannot own the moon.” II.
Yes, it would have been good, he thought, to spend quiet years with his family, waiting for his diseased heart to fail as he sat in his chair staring at the mountains. But this was better. This was life! Not the killing and the terrified screams of dying men suddenly facing the awesome spectre of their own mortality. No, but to face his fears as a man, to stand at the brink of the abyss and refuse to be cowed or beaten down.
The world was changing, and he was running out of places to hide.
Jon Shannow, the King of Kings has spoken the words of your death. I am Rhodaeul the Hunter. Do you have anything to say before you die?’ ‘No,’ said Shannow, palming his gun and blasting Rhodaeul from the saddle. The Atlantean hit the ground hard, a hammering pain in his chest; he tried to draw his pistol, but Shannow rode forward and fired a second shot that smashed his skull.
Nothing would ever have been achieved, he thought, if men had allowed themselves to be diverted by the scale of the problems faced.
I don’t want eternal life. I want a little joy, a large amount of pleasure, and a swift death once I lose the appetite for either.
I feel that way about heaven; it’s far more important that Heaven should exist than that I should ever see it.
Fear cannot be trusted... It exaggerates everything. It is both treacherous and dishonest.
A great man once told me there can be no courage without fear,” Helikaon said. “He was right. Remember that when your belly trembles and your legs grow weak.
No one ever gets out of this life alive.