Richard Nell > Quotes

“What…do I want?” Ruka put his hands to his awful face and closed his golden eyes, shuddering with what could have been a laugh, or a sob. “I want a world where love is not a crime, Priestess, a world where children are not doomed to misery because they are different. I want only laws with mercy, and justice, and wisdom...but I will settle for your pink insides in my palm, and your brains on a rock.”
― Richard Nell, Kings of Paradise

“Faith is the desire for virtue. The pursuit is worthy of respect, if not the conclusions. Try not to judge those who have been led astray.”
― Richard Nell, Kings of Paradise

“For now, though, Priestess,” the man’s top lip peeled to show sharp, angled teeth, “I will settle for your pink insides in my palm, and your brains on a rock.”
― Richard Nell, Kings of Paradise

“You think you're a god. I see a thing with endless power and little wisdom, and prefer my deities the other way around.”
― Richard Nell, Kings of Heaven

“I’ll be part of your book, Mother, but not like Egil or Haki or Rupa. I’ll be Omika, the giant. I’ll be the monster who frightens little girls. That’s what I am. I’ll butcher the whole world one by one with my bare hands, and when they’re all dead, the lawmakers and priestesses and all their servants, then I’ll go to the afterlife and find you, and I’ll make you their queen.”
― Richard Nell, Kings of Paradise

“it's not him, but the dark jester at the heart of greatness, the destroyer locked inside the smith.”
― Richard Nell, Kings of Heaven

“You are a man of vision, so you cannot understand. Small minds rarely look beyond their grasp.”
― Richard Nell, Kings of Heaven

“He understood this man too was a slave to greater forces, just as Egil was—that his deeds and words were the last scribblings of a simple rower on a mighty ship, trapped in seething waves, never to be written in any tales.”
― Richard Nell, Kings of Ash

“I mean, I know you’re a scribe and all, but you were at point blank range, Johnny. A child could have made that shot. A drunk, palsy child, with a broken hand. The bards will sing songs of that shot. You will live in legend, right next to me.” -Lamorak”
― Richard Nell, Rebellion of the Black Militia

“Love is the very worst reason for a prince to marry, especially the daughter of a rival. What secrets might you whisper in the night to what is all but a spy?”
― Richard Nell, Kings of Paradise

“She couldn’t imagine eating bats, even if she was starving.”
― Richard Nell, Kings of Paradise

“His body suggested they make a river of their captor’s blood, as well, then maybe see if they tasted like pig. There seemed to be no need, of course, and Ruka hadn’t had to eat a man in years. But he had to admit, he was curious.”
― Richard Nell, Kings of Ash

“Ruka was a lone wolf in the shape of a man,”
― Richard Nell, Kings of Ash

“Returning to ash was just a dream. What is ash, but dust, spread out over the fields and streets in the wind?”
― Richard Nell, Kings of Paradise

“There is only fear and failure. The world is cruel to the weak. How they suffer does not matter.”
― Richard Nell, Kings of Ash

“As always, if he beat them, he allowed himself to strangle his Kunla doll. She hadn’t killed his mother, yes he knew that, but she had killed his father, and that made his mother weak enough that Ruka’s curse could finally destroy her. Killing her would not change things, he knew, but it was a start, and the thought of it made him salivate even now. He would kill her as cleanly as possible to keep her body whole, build her a grave, and then she would be his. He would kill her over and over and over in his Grove in every possible way. He would build a torture chamber just for her, and he would learn if the dead could scream.”
― Richard Nell, Kings of Paradise

“a thing once done held much less fear, as the mystery of the unknown vanished.”
― Richard Nell, Kings of Paradise

“To hell with it, he thought, I'll do what I always do. I'll make a great cloud of dirt, blood and tears until no one can move, or see. Then I'll charge my way through it because no one else has the balls.”
― Richard Nell, Devil of the 22nd

“Like all thoughts, once he’d imagined it, it was strangely hard to change, and impossible to forget.”
― Richard Nell, Kings of Paradise

“Rulership was ugly lies from pretty faces; it was coddling those too timid to face the hardship of the world.”
― Richard Nell, Kings of Ash

“Indeed, it was the very essence of power, for any fool with a large stick could prevent speech—but to put words in another's mouth with nothing but threat? This was the power to re-shape reality.”
― Richard Nell, Kings of Heaven