Morning Star — Book Review & Quotes
Quotes
“A man thinks he can fly, but he is afraid to jump. A poor friend pushes him from behind.” He looks up at me. “A good friend jumps with.”
“Forget a man’s name and he’ll forgive you. Remember it, and he’ll defend you forever.”
“You and I keep looking for light in the darkness, expecting it to appear. But it already has.” I touch his shoulder. “We’re it, boyo. Broken and cracked and stupid as we are, we’re the light, and we’re spreading.”
“justice isn’t about fixing the past, it’s about fixing the future. We’re not fighting for the dead. We’re fighting for the living. And for those who aren’t yet born.”
“If your heart beats like a drum, and your legs a little wet, it’s because the Reaper’s come to collect a little debt.”
“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.”
“What is pride without honor? What is honor without truth? Honor is not what you say. It is not what you read.” Romulus thumps his chest. “Honor is what you do.”
“You know a people have given up when they stop teaching their children.”
“In war, men lose what makes them great. Their creativity. Their wisdom. Their joy. All that’s left is their utility.”
“If this is the end, I will rage toward it.”
“I am not alone. I am not his victim. So let him do his worst. I am the Reaper. I know how to suffer. I know the darkness.”
“It takes more to hope than to remember.”
“How many mothers have prayed to see their sons, their daughters return from war only to realize the war has kept them, the world has poisoned them, and they’ll never be the same?”
“This is always how the story would end,” he says to me. “Not with your screams. Not with your rage. But with your silence.”
“I thought being a man was having control. Being the master and commander of your own destiny. How could any boy know that freedom is lost the moment you become a man. Things start to count. To press in. Constricting slowly, inevitably, creating a cage of inconveniences and duties and deadlines and failed plans and lost friends.”
“Tidings! It’s Uncle Sevro and the Moderately Friendly Giant.”
“Pity is not forgiveness, nor is gratitude absolution.”
“Life’s not just a matter of breathing, it’s a matter of being.”
“Wear the mask. Hide the man. Feel nothing. See everything. Move and kill. Move and kill. I am not a man. They are not men.”
“Government is never the solution, but it is almost always the problem.”
“so desensitized to violence they’ve forgotten it’s to have purpose. Violence is a tool. It is meant to shock. To change. Instead, they normalize and celebrate it. And create a culture of exploitation where they are so entitled to sex and power that when they are told no, they pull a sword and do as they like.”
“I wish there was some way I could control the variables, but if the time in the darkness taught me anything, it’s that the world is larger than my grasp.”
“We must save ourselves from ourselves before the inheritance of humanity is ash.”
“We all have nature and nurture to shape us. She can watch other people’s opinions when she has opinions of her own, and no sooner. We’re not digital creatures. We’re flesh and blood. Better she learns that before the world finds her.”
“I want to believe his sense of justice is equal to my love for him, but these are deep waters, and I know friends can lie just as well as enemies.”
“Absent love, fear will do nicely in a pinch.”
“My name is Felicia au…” I feint a whip at her face. She brings her blade up, and Victra goes diagonal and impales her at the belly button. I finish her off with a neat decapitation. “Bye, Felicia.” Victra spits, turning to the last Praetorian.”
“War isn’t real. It’s just a three-letter word for other people that they see in the digital newsfeeds.”
“The moment a child thinks it is entitled to anything, they think they deserve everything. Why”
“Whatever plan I make, it seems the world is content to undo it.”
“I howl for my wife, for my father. For Ragnar and Quinn and Pax and Narol. For all the people I’ve lost. For all they would take. I howl because I am a Helldiver of Lykos. I am the Reaper of Mars. And I have paid for access to this bunker with my flesh, all so that I might either die with my friends or see our enemies brought to justice.”
“How sad, the dependability of greed to make men fools.”
“And when all that remains of us is our steel monuments and plastic idols, her winds will whisper, her sands will shift, and she will spin on and on, forgetting about the bold, hairless apes who thought they deserved immortality.”
“In mine, in space, in city and sky, we have lived our lives in fear. Fear of death. Fear of pain. Today, fear only that we fail. We cannot. We stand upon the edge of darkness holding the lone torch left to man. That torch will not go out. Not while I draw breath. Not while your hearts beat in your chests. Not while our ships yet have menace in them. Let others dream. Let others sing. We chosen few are the fire of our people.” I beat my chest. “We are not Red, not Blue or Gold or Gray or Obsidian. We are humanity. We are the tide. And today we reclaim the lives that have been stolen from us. We build the future we were promised.”
“what do you say when a seven-and-a-half-foot-tall woman walks into a room with a battle axe and tongues on a hook? Absolutely nothing.”
“Everything she is dwells behind her eyes. She has her father’s mind. Her mother’s face. And a distant, foreboding sort of intelligence that can give you wings or crush you to the earth.”
“Go on. What about her? Come on, man. You killed my brothers. I killed Fitchner. It’s already awkward.”
“And if I could bring Julian back to you, I would. But this war is for him, or men like him. The decent. It’s for the quiet and gentle who know how the world should be, but can’t shout louder than the bastards.”
“And when you hang from the gallows. When the door beneath you opens, when your feet do the Devil’s Dance, then you will realize in that moment that this has all been for nothing, because there will be no one left to pull your feet.”
