Aaron Dembski-Bowden > Quotes

“Everything is darkest," Xaphen mused, "before the dawn."

"That, my brother, is an axiom that sounds immensely profound until you realize it's a lie.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, The First Heretic

“You came to me asking how my faith survived the Day of Judgement. I will tell you a secret. When the stars fell, when the seas boiled and the earth burned, my faith didn’t die. That is when I began to believe.

God was real, and he hated us.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, The First Heretic

“Xaphen swore an oath never to fail his primarch.

Argal Tal did not. He spoke in a voice soft enough to break hearts, "We are heretics, father.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, The First Heretic

“Glory?
Glory is for those too weak to find their inner strength, leaving them hollow parasites, feeding on the affection of even lesser men. Glory is for cowards, too afraid to let their names die.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Butcher's Nails

“For the core of religion is the twinned principle of arrogance and fear. Fear of oblivion. Fear of an unfair life and an arbitrary universe. Fear of there simply being nothing, no great and grand scheme to existence. The fear, ultimately, of being powerless.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, The Master of Mankind

“Keeda had survived the death of her Titan, murdered by a Lysander Reaver in black and white that killed them without looking twice. She survived the wracking pain of severance from the Syrgalah's great-hearted machine spirit - a soul she adored and would willingly died to defend. She'd pulled her mutilated colleague free from imminent death and bidden her dead mentor farewell. She'd even fired hopelessly a soldier sworn to kill her, who she knew she could never have harmed.

But she only started screaming when a demon embraced and said he'd come to save her life.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Betrayer

“I have crusaded across his empire for over a century, raising icons and faiths in his image – and only now he objects? After a hundred years, only now am I told that all I’ve done is wrong?”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, The First Heretic

“And as man turned from the light of day, all that was left to him was the endless night. Without contrast, he threw open his arms, and darkness took hold.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, The First Heretic

“You’ll scream just as he did,’ Xarl said with a smile.

The Champion showed no reaction. He didn’t even move. ‘I knew that warrior,’ he said with
solemn care. ‘He was Caleus, born of Newfound, and I know he died as he lived: with courage,
honour, and knowing no fear.’

Xarl swept his chainsword across the scene, gesturing at the prone forms of First Claw. ‘I know all
of these warriors. They are First Claw, and I know they’ll die as they lived: trying to run away.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Void Stalker

“The war is over, Diocletian. Win or lose, Horus has damned us all. Mankind will share in his ignorance until the last man or woman draws the species’ last breath. The warp will forever be a cancer in the heart of all humans. The Imperium may last a hundred years, or a thousand, or ten thousand. But it will fall, Diocletian. It will fall. The shining path is lost to us. Now we rage against the dying of the light.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, The Master of Mankind

“And in a sunless realm, the sun rose at last.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, The Master of Mankind

“Existence is strife."
"To strive is to live.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Aurelian

“Is that not blasphemy? Defying the will of the Covenant?’

‘No,’ said the captain. ‘It was a tactical retreat in the face of overwhelming boredom.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, The First Heretic

“He remembered being blinded by his father's light. He remembered refusing to abandon his brothers and sisters, beneath a blue sky at high-sun, far from the city of Desh'ea. He remembered the mechanical thunder of absolute betrayal, when he was stolen from the death he'd so richly earned.

He remembered the cold moment of truth as he stood in the dark, his hurting eyes healing, that every day he breathed was an unwanted gift. He was walking another man's destiny now. His destiny was to be with the men and women who needed him, who called for him, who followed him into the mountains, and died without him. A destiny denied.

He was Angron of Desh'ea. After that, nothing mattered. He'd listened to the others that begged him, that needed it all to matter. He'd played their games, living another man's life. He'd led his fleets, he'd embraced his sons, he'd told himself that blood was thicker than water, and that the Eaters of Worlds were the army he wanted and the horde he deserved. He'd sustained himself on lies, letting none see how he starved.

And he served in his cold-hearted father's empire, enduring the silent sneers of brothers he despised.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Betrayer

“Some truths were too ugly to be easily embraced.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Aurelian

“Freedom is the only thing worth fighting for.

It is why tyrants always fall.

- Primarch Angron”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Lord of the Red Sands

“Viris colratha dath sethicara tesh dasovallian,’ Malcharion murmured in serpentine Nostraman. ‘Solruthis veh za jasz.’ Sons of our Father, stand in midnight clad. We bring the night.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Massacre

“Luck runs out, Blackmane.
Aye. But not today, singer.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Ragnar Blackmane

“Nostramo. A lawless and sunless place. It burned not because it was guilty but because we failed to keep it innocent. Our laws failed the moment we sailed away to the stars and in desperate embarrassment our father incinerated the evidence of his failure.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, The Long Night

“I will tell you how this ends, Jarl Grimnar. It ends with you on your knees, as the first High King of Fenris to bare his throat to a foe's blade. Refuse, and suffer the excommunication of your Chapter and the Exterminatus of your miserable home world”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, The Emperor's Gift

“But what was a scar, really? Neither evidence of defeat, nor a medal of triumph. A scar was nothing more than a mark to show that a warrior faced his enemies at all times, never once showing his back.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Butcher's Nails

“My Legion–’ Magnus’s face creased with rising anger ‘–was backed into a corner. My Thousand Sons died because of your treachery, because of the venom you whispered in Horus’s ears to start this insanity. He calls it his rebellion, but we both know the first heart to turn traitor was the one beating in your chest.’
Lorgar laughed again, the sound one of unfeigned delight. ‘See? The blame always lies with one of us unworthy souls. Never with you for making the wrong compacts with the gods that you deny are even real!’
The parchments on Lorgar’s armour flapped in the sudden wind of Magnus’s ire. The Word Bearer stood unfazed, his serene smile boiling his brother’s blood. The sorcerer’s skin quivered, beetles writhing beneath it as witch-lightning danced across his coppery flesh. Magnus moved, his body forming from the air itself, shaped out of the poison behind reality’s veil. Anger drove him into true incarnation.
‘That is enough, Lorgar.’
Lorgar nodded. ‘It is. I’ve no desire to trade insults. We’ve all made mistakes, it’s how we deal with the aftermath that matters.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Betrayer

“And I wonder now, as they chant my new title, what they will decide to do with the relics. "Hero of Helsreach!" the crowd cheers.

As if there is only one.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Helsreach

“Keeda har survived the death of her Titan, murdered by a Lysander Reaver in black and white that killed them without looking twice. She survived the wracking pain of severance from the Syrgalah's great-hearted machine spirit - a soul she adored and would willingly died to defend. She'd pulled her mutilated colleague free from imminent death and bidden her dead mentor farewell. She'd even fired hopelessly a soldier sworn to kill her, who she knew she could never have harmed.

But she only started screaming when a demon embraced and said he'd come to save her life.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Betrayer

“‘Victory comes,’ Angron smiled, showing a crescent of bloody teeth, ‘to the last man standing.’”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Betrayer

“My sons, the galaxy is burning. We all bear witness to a final truth – our way is not the way of the Imperium. You have never stood in the Emperor’s light. Never worn the Imperial eagle. And you never will. You shall stand in midnight clad, your claws forever red with the lifeblood of my father’s failed empire, warring through the centuries as the talons of a murdered god. Rise, my sons, and take your wrath across the stars, in my name. In my memory. Rise, my Night Lords.”
— The Primarch Konrad Curze, at the final gathering of the VIIIth Legion.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Soul Hunter

“The universe has never seen a living being who loathed being alive as much as my father. His life was broken in seeking to prove how humanity could be controlled, and his death was a sacrifice to prove that the species was ultimately wretched.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Void Stalker

“I am told to demand millions of men and women from these new worlds, to make them take up arms in the Emperor's hordes, and I am told to call this a tithe, or recruitment, because we are too scared of the truth. We refuse to call it slavery.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Betrayer

“The promise of mutually assured
destruction had a way of calming even the fiercest hearts.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Black Legion

“Let me not die unremembered.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, The Master of Mankind