Graham McNeill > Quotes

“You fuss too much over making the "right" choice Gaius. All we need do is make a good choice, see it through, and accept the consequences.”
― Graham McNeill, Fulgrim

“Ignorance and fear create the gods, enthusiasm and deceit adorn them, and human weakness worships them.”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“The Emperor tells us that civilization will only achieve perfection when the last stone of the last church falls upon the last priest.”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“When you have come to the edge of all that you know and are about to drop off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things will happen,’ the Warmaster had told him.
‘And what are they?’ he had asked.
‘That there will be something solid to stand on or you’ll be taught to fly,’ laughed Horus as he jumped.”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“A wise man of Old Earth had once claimed that science would destroy mankind, not through its weapons of mass destruction, but through finally proving that there was no god.”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“Going from the pursuit of perfection in all things to ultimate depravity isn’t a journey anybody makes in one step, it’s a series of small ones – each one justifiable in its own isolated way. But after you’ve taken a hundred of those small steps, you’re a long way from who you were at the start.”
― Graham McNeill, Fulgrim

“I was there the day that Horus fell.”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“One should never see a drinking establishment well lit, he thought, it just makes it look even sadder.”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“This is a sublime work whether any higher power exists or not. It does not prove the existence of anything. No gods ever created art.'
'In an earlier age, some might have considered such a sentiment blasphemy.'
'Blasphemy,' said Revelation with a wry smile, 'is a victimless crime.”
― Graham McNeill, The Last Church

“Those with courage and character to speak the truth always seem sinister to the ignorant."

- First Chaplain Erebus”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“Common decency and civil behaviour are just a thin veneer over the animal at the core of mankind that gets out whenever it has the chance.”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“There is no shame in ignorance, only in denying it. By knowing what we do not know, we can take steps to remedy our lack of knowledge”
― Graham McNeill

“He (the Emperor) once said of ancient Earth that there were torches, who were the teachers, but also extinguishers, who were the priests.”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“In mockery are the seeds of impiety sown.”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“The truth is useless if no one can hear it.”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“It is the folly of men to believe that they are great players on the stage of history, that their actions might affect the grand procession that is the pasage of time.”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“History is a relentless master. It has no present, only the past rushing into the future."

- Warmaster Horus”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“In all things we strive to eradicate weakness, but it is not weakness to ask for help, my brothers. It is weakness to deny that help is needed. To fight on without hope when there are those who would gladly lend a hand is foolish, and I have been as blind as any to this, but no more.”
― Graham McNeill, Fulgrim

“I know, but it is a pleasant fiction, my dear, and the sheer impossibility of a quest is no reason to abandon it.”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance."

- Ahzek Ahriman”
― Graham McNeill, The Crimson King

“Life is a risk, my friend. ... We cannot avoid risk, my friend, for if we do, we achieve nothing.”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“Unanswered vox hails requested medical aid and supply, but the line of Astartes at the top of the north ridge was grimly silent as the exhausted warriors of the Raven Guard and Salamanders came to within a hundred metres of their allies. A lone flare shot skyward from inside the black fortress where Horus had made his lair, exploding in a hellish red glow that lit the battlefield below like a madman’s vision of the end of the world. And the fire of betrayal roared from the barrels of a thousand guns.”
― Graham McNeill

“Each man is a spark in the darkness. Would that we all burn as bright.”
― Graham McNeill, Nightbringer

“The seeker after truth must have a care he is not deceived, for false knowledge is far more dangerous than ignorance. All men wish to possess knowledge, but few are willing to pay the price. Always men will seek to take the short cut, the quick route to power, and it is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that will lure him to evil ways. True knowledge is gained only after the acquisition of wisdom. Without wisdom, a powerful person does not become more powerful, he becomes reckless. His power will turn on him and eventually destroy all he has built.”
― Graham McNeill, A Thousand Sons

“So long as Man endures, so too does Chaos.”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“I love mirrors,’ he had once heard Fulgrim say. ‘They let one pass through the surface of things.”
― Graham McNeill, The Reflection Crack'd

“The dead do not squabble as this land’s rulers do. The dead do not fight one another. The dead have no desires, no petty jealousies or ambitions. A world of the dead is a world at peace…”
― Graham McNeill, God King

“...When we turn from one brother, we turn from them all."
"Even when they have made a terrible mistake?"
"Even then. We all make mistakes, lad. We need to appreciate them for what they are - lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, of course, but at least someone else can learn from that.”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“I know that words cannot move mountains, but they can move the multitude - we've proven that time and time again. People are more ready to fight and die for a word than for anything else. Words shape thought, stir feeling, and force action. They kill and revive, corrupt and cure. If being an iterator has taught me anything, it's that men of words - priests, prophets and intellectuals - have played a more decisive role in history than any military leaders or statesmen."

- Kyril Sindermann”
― Graham McNeill, False Gods

“All things in this grand universe are linked to one another by invisible threads, even those things that appear as opposites.”
― Graham McNeill, The Reflection Crack'd